So I'm feeling indecisive about the reworked chapter 6. Honestly, I have a lot of options. One option is to use what I wrote last "not a chapter".
The 2nd option is to simply skip the whole thing. With that second option, I could just move the plot forward towards when Townsend gets woken up and just skip the whole forced drama of the whole thing. That option is sort of starting to appeal to me honestly. Without an inciting incident, the story would feel a great deal slower-paced until Il'antra shows up, but that's workable. Sam would have a bit longer to drive a tractor around and I'm thinking maybe I could add an incident about one of the core beasts Il'antra mentions attacking. I was thinking of doing that anyway.
The third option is to have an inciting incident between Tom and Margaret that drags Sam into conflict. It would serve the same purpose but be less personal, casting Sam as a bit of a self-righteous meddler, but as the actual incident would happen off-camera, it wouldn't make Margaret easier to forgive from the reader's perspective, but it would make Sam have less an emotional reason to be opposed to her, which would make it more realistic for her to forgive Margaret.
The fourth option is to further tone down the inciting incident from last not a chapter's sneak peak. It would involve changing the middle paragraphs to make Margaret's actions less egregious.
Here's what that would look like:
“Why? Because I’m naughty and a slut. But only here, where it doesn’t matter,” she said with a laugh. “And something tells me you’ve never had sex as a man before. I want to take your male virtual virginity.”
Was Sleeping Sam truly a virgin? Surely a mighty barbarian such as I had had plenty of women before. But I could remember nothing. It was as if tonight were the first night I was alive, and I felt fear of this tiny woman. “No, wait… I’m not...” I was backing away still, causing her to laugh.
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“Shhh,” She whispered, leaning in close. “Trust me this won’t hurt. Quite the opposite.” She said grinning. She reached out and gently touched my face. I was struck by how alluring she smelled, a scent like fresh cut flowers mixed with an undefinable musky scent that stirred something in me.
“I’m…” I whisper, unsure of what to say.
“Relax and let this happen.” She told me leaning in to kiss me, pulling my head down to meet hers. I thought about pulling away, but my resistance was eroding. What was the harm? I thought to myself, as I tasted her lips. Curious, I reached out to touch her breast, finding it amazingly soft.
“Yes, that’s it.” She told me encouragingly.
I was starting to feel a certain eagerness, a willingness to do whatever it was she wanted me to do. But there was a tiny voice in the back of my head that sounded angry. “She’s taking advantage of me!” It seemed to say, “You should say no.”
I opened my mouth to protest, but she stuck her tongue in, and I was distracted. Why was I objecting again? I wasn’t sure, and as she wrapped herself tightly around me, it slipped my mind.
She reached down with one hand, intending to grasp me firmly by a part of my anatomy that had grown quite firm when suddenly time began to slow down.
There was time for a puzzled look to freeze on the enchantress’s face as we both became immobile, her hand locked in place, only centimeters away from her objective. The trees around us flickered and became jagged, almost pixelated, and the sky turned blue with strange white text. Most of the text was too small, but I could read the first few lines...
So I'm not sure that changing the scene in that way changes what Margaret did, in the purest definitional sense of the word. But it feels a lot less aggressive. Also, I could replace references to the word "rape" with "take advantage of" which while running the risk of downplaying the severity of Margaret's actions does make the whole thing a bit less aggressively evil.
Post your thoughts on the matter in comments or vote on the poll.