The Maestro's Maker

I just realized yesterday that I had not blogged my blurb for the second book in my Maestro series. So here ya go!

In this sequel to Maestro’s Butterfly, we discover how the vampire Claudio du Fresne was made…

When she discovers a beautiful and arrogant French noble in the hold of her master’s ship, vampire Chloe de la Roche musters the courage to escape her maker, the pirate vampire Gunnar.

Only after turning the man who will become Claudio du Fresne and his oldest friend Francois Villaforte into vampires, to help them escape, does Chloe begin to discover the darkness that binds the two men together. But by then it is too late, and she is trapped between the man who teaches her love through punishment and the man who seeks to use these same methods to subdue her so that he may have the man Chloe loves to himself.

With danger, intrigue, and kinky sex, Maestro’s Maker takes vampire erotica to passionate new levels!

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The Maestro's Apprentice

For the first time in her life, Autumn is free. She has escaped Claudio du Fresne, the vampire for whom she had been a feeder-slave for years. Now she wants to play and, for her, playing means wild, crazy sex with strangers.

She doesn’t count on meeting the vampire Francois Villaforte at a resort for vampires. She doesn’t know he is a very bad man hell-bent on revenge, or that she is going to be caught up in his evil plan. She doesn’t know that she will not be able to stop thinking of Adam, the gentle vampire who took her away from Claudio, whom she assumed she would soon leave in her pursuit of sexual adventure.

What will become of Autumn? What does Francois have planned for her? Will Claudio find her and take her back? Will she ever see Adam again?

This is the third title in Rhonda Leigh Jones' Maestro series.

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Joker Puts a Smile on That Face!

Spoiler Warning!

Just because the Joker has some serious dark mojo going, doesn’t mean he is devoid of some relatively harmless attributes to attract women as well. He has all those old clichés covered—a very active sense of humor; an expressive face and body language; and he is without a doubt the consummate bad boy.

Those things will be covered in the next three articles, starting with the Joker’s odd sense of humor.

The Joker’s sense of humor may be dry and dark, but there is no arguing it’s there. The very first time we see his face, he is cracking a joke: “I believe…what doesn’t kill us…simply makes us stranger!”

His second crack is darker and much more frightening. “Ha. Ha. Hee. Ho. Ho,” he says, deliberately without mirth, while lumbering into the meeting of mob bosses in his second scene. “And I thought my jokes were bad.”

In the same vein, the Joker’s magic trick—making a pencil disappear into the eye of a would-be attacker—is such a study in juxtaposition, the audience isn’t sure whether to laugh or be horrified. First, there is a quick and grisly murder sandwiched between silliness, which has been a hallmark of more traditional Jokers for decades. But then, this particular Joker gives us something that seems to be his alone—a moment where he seems almost childlike in the simplicity of his reaction. Granted, he has learned to use those moments to his benefit, but they are still there. After the pencil “disappears,” he puts his face close to the table as though searching for it, before turning to his audience and announcing, “It’s…it’s gone!”

The ability to appear strangely childlike in the midst of mayhem is one of his more horrifying and endearing qualities.

At the same meeting, he alludes to the mob gatherings as “little group therapy sessions” and to mob accountant Lau as “the television,” because Lau is attending the meeting remotely. Just before his exit, after being threatened by Gambol, the Joker shows them the gangsters the grenades in his coat and suggests that they shouldn’t, “…blow things out of proportion,” in an obvious hats off to the corny cracks made by Jokers of the past.

As interested as the Joker is in annoying his victims with humor, however, it is difficult to say whether he means all of his funny moments to be funny. One of the things that work to humanize him (whether certain fans want him humanized or not) is the fact that things don’t always go smoothly for him. The hospital explosion scene is one of those moments.

After he breaks jail and masterminds a plan to protect Batman’s identity, using the possible destruction of a hospital as the linchpin of the plan, the remote he’s rigged for a simple explosion doesn’t even work properly. The hospital does go up, but it isn’t the grand show the Joker has planned. The humor is in his all-too-human reaction. First we see him waving his arms in frustration, then smacking his remote. When the thing finally decides to work, the man who has been instilling terror in the hearts of fellow characters and fans alike for the past couple of hours, startles dramatically before fleeing the scene.

Before that, we get to enjoy the Joker in a quiet moment, ironically taking care to wash his hands after being in Harvey Dent’s hospital room.

Another humorous moment that may or may not have been exactly controlled by the Joker happens in the very first scene after one of the mobsters asks him if he expects to just rob them and get away with it. His reaction: “Yeah…?” The accompanying facial expression suggests we are seeing a moment of vulnerable honesty, which is one of the most humorous things we can witness, to which anyone who watches prank shows can attest.

The Joker’s humor is necessarily dark. The side of the big rig he has appropriated for the night’s adventure originally proclaimed “Laughter Is the Best Medicine.” But someone has painted a large, red “S” in front of the motto, making it “SLaughter Is the Best Medicine.”

In light of the previous articles in this series exploring the Joker’s “fear as aphrodisiac” approach to winning fangirls, it may seem counter-intuitive to suggest that part of his popularity with women stems from the fact that he’s just so darn much fun. Though the clueless goofball never gets the girl, a man who can make her laugh as well as push her other buttons has a leg up on the more serious-minded competition. Take Batman, for instance. He is much more sexually appealing as Bruce Wayne because he lightens up and cracks a smile once in a while. “Not fun” is not sexy for long.

Part of the Joker’s appeal centers on the fact that, even though he is obviously dealing with a circus truck load of issues, he does seem to have a good time in the moment. Settling into the driver’s seat of the “SLaughter” truck, he insists, “I love this job. I love it! I love it!” Driving manically through the streets of Gotham makes him cackle with glee, as does the opportunity to beat the stuffing out of Batman. In fact, he seems to genuinely enjoy all of his interaction with Batman.

In one of the most memorable moments from the film—and there are plenty—he uses a well-known line from pop culture—“You complete me”—to humorously express his attachment to the dark knight.

Ironically, and very appropriately, the Joker’s shining moment of humor comes mere seconds before what is arguably his most frightening scene in the entire movie—the moment he first notices Rachel Dawes. The only thing he does, is to preen in preparation for the approach. Since the Joker has very carefully crafted his frightening, anti-sex symbol appearance, he knows he isn’t making himself more attractive for the female, at least not in the way he pretends to. He is preening for the laughs, for yet another juxtaposition calculated to throw his victims off guard.

He is mocking Rachel, and Bruce Wayne’s other party guests, while playing it up for the theater audience. In yet another ironic twist, the Joker’s “Hey, beautiful” moment is actually one of his sexiest.

In spite of how terrifying a man he is, no one can say the Joker isn’t fun. The laughs, the car chases, the party-crashing, the anarchy and chaos all come together to make the viewer feel as though she has just been through one heck of a joy ride. True to his name, the Joker is a laugh a minute, between more somber, frightening moments. He is well-rounded and immediately confusing, which gives him a sense of reality to go along with his larger-than-life persona. In the end, it’s easy to forget shivering in the dark while waiting for him to dispatch with Gambol, or cringing through his videos, in favor of remembering the frenzied adventure. As a result, the idea of playing a Bonnie to his Clyde, or even simply being a torture-room plaything, becomes a very tempting proposition.

This is post No. 6 in my article series Sex and the Joker: Batman's Nemesis as Underground Sex Symbol. Read the previous post in the series. Read the next post.

Intimacy and the Joker

Spoiler Warning!

If you watch The Dark Knight only with an eye for adventure in the form of explosions and mayhem, it’s easy to miss the Joker’s extremely intimate nature. One of the most intriguing things about this character is that he will tell you he is doing one thing while actually doing another. Consider the fact that he tells Harvey Dent he isn’t a planner or a “schemer,” even while pulling off extremely meticulous plans, and you'll see you can't take everything he says at face value.

The behavior he exhibits that we think of as antisocial is actually an indication of his extreme need for interaction and intimacy. If the Joker didn’t want to interact with people, he wouldn’t force them into his games, and he probably wouldn’t stand quite so close or touch them quite so much.

These expressions of intimacy take three forms: his extreme presence, his sensual nature and the things he reveals about himself. As frightening as some of these manifestations are, they provide his female viewers with plenty of fodder for fantasy.

A Man of Presence

One of the most common complaints you will ever hear from a woman regarding a man she actually likes is that she can’t seem to get his attention. He doesn’t listen to her. He doesn’t look at her that special way anymore. All he does is sit in front of the television or play video games.

Television and video games are passive activities. They are non-interactive, and by interactive I mean face-to-face, real human interaction. People often use entertainment to "disappear" for a while. Not looking at people and not listening or reacting to what they say are also strategies for disappearing. When we disappear, we become non-entities. We have no presence.

What is presence? It is the state of being aware of, influenced by, and able to influence people and events around you. In order to have presence, you must give your audience – whether one or many – your full attention. You must react to what they do and say and you must respond. Though listening is a large part of gauging the information your audience is giving you, presence is actually conveyed with the eyes.

When discussing a man with presence, a woman will often say she fell in love with him because of the way he looked at her. We crave each other’s undivided attention. Because many people are unwilling to give another that undivided attention, or because they simply don’t know how or are afraid to, the man who can do that is a force to be reckoned with.

If the Joker has a superpower, that ability to focus and make people feel his presence is it.

From the armed bank employee to the meeting of mobsters to Gambol to Brian the fake Batman to Bruce Wayne’s party guests, the Joker gives his audience his full attention. He listens and responds to them. He looks them in the eye. He mesmerizes them with stories, voice and touch.

More than anyone in the film, the viewer gets the feeling that the Joker is 100-percent there. And being there, being present, is sexy.

The interesting thing about the Joker is that he isn’t immune himself to craving the presence of others. He demands participation. He wants his audience’s full attention in return for his. “Look at me,” he commands on several occasions when his victims attempt to “disappear” on him, becoming angry if that command isn’t followed immediately.

Joker’s Hands-on Approach

Just because we have been trained to think of sensuality as a term that must be discussed only in terms of sweet romantic trysts doesn’t mean it belongs there. Sensuality is simply the use and enjoyment of the five senses. When you take off your shoes and squish your toes in the carpet, you are being sensual. When you enjoy that everything-on chilidog or marvel how your friend’s car handles the road, you are being sensual. Painters often become painters because they like the way it feels to put paint on canvas. Children enjoy Play-Doh because of the way it feels in their hands. All of these activities are sensual, even if they aren’t overtly sexual.

The Joker employs an in-your-face sensuality, which is part of what makes him so very frightening. He both gives and receives sensual stimulation as a matter of course, beginning with the basics of sight and sound. His appearance, for starters, is as fascinating and alluring as it is terrifying. His makeup not only calls to mind clowns, which for many people are nightmarish apparitions, it calls to mind pain and death in the visage of a trauma victim with sunken or blackened eyes and bloody mouth. It accentuates the scarring that has robbed his face of its original beauty and turned him into something that could be absolutely repellant.

Could be, but isn't.

His insistence on invading personal space and physically touching his victims far more than is necessary, the constant threat of his blade, the sound of his voice as he tells his scar stories, the lip-licking habit that both frightens and entices – even the sheer pleasure he gets from hanging out of the window of a moving car – all give evidence of that feral sensuality and lend him an animalistic appeal. Even the fact that he sweats off his war paint and avoids washing his hair only adds to his visceral nature.

The Joker is a master of both giving and receiving the ultimate in physical sensation – pain. He rides the line admirably between torture-room sadist and extreme masochist. Only a master pain-slut can take the blows he takes from Batman quite so gleefully.

He even admits his enjoyment of intimacy during his conversation with the police officer in the interrogation room. “You wanna know…why…I use a knife?” he asks. “Guns are too quick. You can’t savor all the…little…emotions. You…you see…in their… last moments…people show ya who they really are. So, in a way…I knew your friends better than you ever did.”

Tears of a Clown

Yes, I went there. And you are too.

One of the most common ways of establishing intimacy with another person is to reveal things about yourself. The Joker tells only two stories about his scars in The Dark Knight, but those are two of the most dramatic and memorable moments of a high-drama film. Forget the literal truth of the stories for a moment. You can tell a jury to disregard testimony all you want, but they will not be able to erase the emotions created by what they’ve heard. The same goes for the Joker’s audience.

The first story is of a deranged father who killed the boy Joker’s mother and maliciously scarred his face. The second tells of a man so desperate to cheer up his wife that he mutilates himself, only to have her leave him in the end because she doesn’t like the way he looks. I get the sense that both stories are true in essence – an abusive father perhaps killing his mother, and a wife’s rejection of him because of what he was becoming – even if they don’t shed much light on the thing he pretends to explain.

He isn’t actually talking about his facial scars. He’s talking about his emotional scars. The hurt and anger he expresses in the telling of the stories all serve to not only mesmerize his victim, but to humanize him for a moment, and that effect brings the audience further into his snare.

He seduces with lies and half-truths. He also seduces by recognizing the deep-seated issues of others. One of the best ways to recognize another person’s issues is to share them. Therefore, the fact that he pegs Harvey Dent as a man concerned with fairness and Jim Gordon as a man struggling with isolation suggests that the Joker is also concerned about these things. He has intimate knowledge of how these emotions work on people and is therefore able to use them against others.

In fact, Batman himself uses the same trick on the Joker moments after the ferries fail to blow, when he says, “You’re alone.” And we already know Bruce Wayne has been burdened by solitude for a very long time.

Even if a potential seduction victim sitting in the audience fails to recognize these clues to the Joker’s psyche on a conscious level, she will still be affected by them. The Joker’s extreme presence, highly sensual nature and emotional revelations combine to help him establish intimacy with her so that, by the end of the film, she is suitably primed to write fanfiction, alter official images and build fan sites in his honor.


This is No. 5 in my article series Sex and the Joker: Batman's Nemesis as Underground Sex Symbol. Read the previous post in the series. Read the next post.