Sex & Chocolate by Reese Johnson

[reviews_and_ramblings]

This is a book that, if you sit down to review without doing a little search before, could be easily misinterpreted: Reese Johnson is an African American man, and I gave you two important details to read the book, African American AND man. Why I underlight all of this? since I found the attitude of the main hero, African American Jim, toward sex a bit too much direct for my taste (hard and fast and very Alpha male behavior), but this is right, I'm a woman and the author is a man, and so it's obvious that our perspective is different. And then I also found that Jim was a bit too obsessed by the black and white contrast; sentence like "You ready for this big black dick?" or "I want to feel that chocolate sliding into me" if written by a caucasian woman (or man BTW, I think it would be the same), would lift a lot of eyebrows, but if they are from an African American man is it the same? mmm I don't know.

Anyway, the novella is nice, I have always liked the office affairs romances, and this is a classical example: Jim is the new lawyer of an important firm, and he is paired with handsome and friendly Steve, another young rising star of the same firm. At first glance both Jim than Steve recognize the mutual attraction, and it's not long before they start a torrid office affair. And now I will play the advocate devil and will say that I didn't like that Jim, at the beginning of their relationship, when they hadn't yet speak aloud the "commitment" words, had another office affair with an horny secretary... truth be told, it was the secretary that launched herself in Jim's arms, and it was nothing else than a quick entercourse, and Jim didn't think twice at it, it was so uneventful that he didn't even considered it something he has to say to Steve. So why the author put it in the book? I believe since it helps to frame Jim's characters, he is a bisexual man, he is quite free with his sexuality when he doesn't consider himself in a relationship, but he is also willing to be exclusive if he meets the right man... probably it would be more right to say man or woman, but I have the feeling that Jim, even if he professes himself bisexual, is more bend on the gay side, and for a real relationship he will always choose a man.

In all of this talk of Jim, I neglected Steve... how about him? Steve is probably a better man than Jim, he has more restraints, he probably needs more than a pang of desire to sleep with someone. I also have the feeling that he was not so happy when Jim talked about his past relationships, and how he was able to have relationships both with men than women, I had the clear impression that Steve let it go the matter, since he was not happy of what he was hearing. But Steve is not even someone you can use as welcome rug, he has a strong core, and its clear when he didn't accept Jim's moody behavior and searches his own answers when Jim is not giving them (look for the answering machine scene).

As I said Sex & Chocolate is not an easy novella, but I think that above all since it's "only" a novella, it has a great potential: both main characters could be stereotype, but then the author gives them deep and details to make them particular and interesting. Also the supporting character, Jim's ex Alan, is the classic flamboyant gay man, and the author could have played the drama card, but instead he dealt with him with sweetness and compassion. They are all details that make me thing that this is a very good first try for a new author.

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