by Anna Roberts
She also starts researching mental illnesses on the internet because everyone knows that the best person to fix deep-rooted upfuckness is a half-bright English major with a Google habit. Also no psychiatric professional with years of training and experience stands half a chance against the powers of a romance novel heroine with a standard issue Healing VaginaTM.
Then she draws on him with lipstick in a way that I think is supposed to be sexy, delineating the areas where he is comfortable being touched. He has scars and she’s moved to tears, because she’s an asshole who thinks people are puzzles to be solved in order reinforce her piffling self-worth.
And ding ding ding...it’s FUCK O’CLOCK.
She goes on top and he bitches about having to use condoms. “I hate these things. I’ve a good mind to call Dr. Greene to come around and give you a shot.”
Hey, that’s a great idea Dickfacehead. Why don’t you get her microchipped while you’re at it?
Then she has a shower. “What a delicious way to spend a Saturday afternoon.”
Yep. It’s Saturday afternoon. Saturday June 11th. Remember when it was June 10th? No, neither do I, because it feels like it was about forty years ago. It also serves to demonstrate just how mindbuggeringly shallow these people are, because they’ve been back together for just over twenty four hours and are already exchanging I love yous. And they’re not even drunk. Also bear in mind that the whole ‘epic romance’ that played out in Fifty Shades of Grey lasted about a month in real time. These idiots barely know one another.
Then she gets dressed in $540 lingerie and $3295 shoes, but despite the oddly specific price-tags she is absolutely, categorically, definitely not a gold digger and she would totally feel the same way about him if he wasn’t rich and handsome.
And then he sticks some ben-wa balls up her foofy and then gives her a present – a pair of earrings.
Inside shines a pair of drop earrings. Each has four diamonds, one at the base, then a gap, then three perfectly spaced diamonds hanging one after the other. They’re beautiful, simple and classic. What I would choose myself, if I were ever given the opportunity to shop at Cartier.
Nothing says simple and classic like four Cartier rocks hanging off each ear. Also she has absolutely no problem with accepting this new ludicrously expensive gift because he said he loved her. So that means she’s totally not into him for his money, got that?
Oh my God, is this chapter still not over yet?
Remember that masked ball he invited her to, sometime back in the last Ice Age? Yeah, well – they’re going to that. Oh, and there’s a library in his apartment – with a billard table and a Tiffany lamp. We’ve never heard of this before. Do you have an explanation for this, Dickfacehead?
“...The apartment is quite spacious. I realised today, when you mentioned exploring, that I’ve never given you a tour...”
Spacious? If it sprouts any more rooms between books I’ll start picturing an old fashioned police box.
Oh my sweet merry fuck – they can’t even have a section break and get to the party. No, there has to be a scene of them in the back of the car and they have to arrive. They finally meet up with Mia/Alice, who introduces Ana to some friends who turn cunty as soon as they see that Dickfacehead is taken. This is because women cannot have friendships with other women because we are in constant competition for the most desirable men. Honest. Also this book is feminist because it makes women touch themselves. So there.
Dickfacehead’s awful family fawn over Ana. Ana has a bad attack of the Bellas and whines up a storm because Grandma Dickfacehead is far too friendly and overfamiliar. Then they’re told to write their names and put them in envelopes and then - I am not even fucking joking - there is a page dedicated to the dinner menu.
The food, like everything else in this book, is pretentious as fuck.
Salmon Tartare with Creme Fraiche and Cucumber on Toasted Brioche.
So an open smoked salmon and cucumber sandwich, then?
Oh, and there’s foie gras with the main, because that’s what posh people eat. Cruel posh people. Come to think of it, I don’t even know what this shindig is in aid of. I’m guessing it’s not for a charity dedicated to bird welfare. There is also no vegetarian option, which seems odd.
Goddamn it – I shouldn’t have to think about these things. This is why the last thing fiction needs is more dinner menus.
"Hungry?" Christian murmurs so only I can hear. I know he’s not referring to the food, and the muscles deep in my belly respond.
Seriously? You liked that tired old joke so much you did it twice? (Spoiler – this was what the gynecologist said to Ana when she gave birth to Dickfacehead’s second child.)
Blah blah blah blah. This party has only just started and already it’s gone on too long. Ana is bitchy about one of the waitresses and then we find out what the prizes in the charity auction are. And Dickfacehead owns a cabin in Aspen, and has generously donated a week’s stay as a prize. I would not want to win that prize – it probably looks like the inside of Ed Gein’s house.
Ana bids on it anyway and spends the twenty four thousand that Dickfacehead deposited in her bank account, as a spirited reminder of her financial independence. She’s totally keeping the diamond earrings though.
And oh my fucking God, we are finally at the end of this chapter.
Oh.
Apparently it was two chapters. I missed the page where it said chapter six because they were fucking and I don’t pay any attention to those pages for obvious reasons.
It’s still June 11th, by the way. Time means nothing when you’re in love. (Space also expands to accomodate rooms the author forgot to write into book one.)
Chapter Seven
...opens with us still at the kleptocrats-only masked ball. The pacing is so far to cock that the book is already beginning to read like an episode of 24, only with even more sociopaths and added cruelty to geese.
So – where were we? Oh yes. Cue the cut-screen. Ana has just spaffed twenty four grand on a week in Aspen. Dickfacehead is furious because he gave her that money as a gift and threatens to spank her. She gets excited because she has ben-wa balls up her bloodless, hyperactive clunge and the rest of us die quietly in the corner with boredom. Because the last thing this book needs is yet another pointless sex scene.
But wait! What bullshit from yonder stage spews forth? It’s the First Dance Auction!
The ladies are going up for grabs and the men are going to bid on them. Since Ana has been in the throes of a full-blown attack of the Bellas since they arrived, you can probably guess what’s going to happen now. She’s going to mope, chew her lip and complain about people paying attention to her and men finding her attractive.
She does not disappoint.
The M.C provides a supposedly funny preamble about the ladies’ various talents – (“Jada speaks fluent Japanese, is a qualified fighter pilot, and an Olympic gymnast...”) and I have fun for the first time since cracking this tiresome stale fart of a book.
Lovely Ana is a badly drawn fictional character ripped from the pages of someone else’s lousy novel. Sullen, unfriendly and pretentious, she is also an accomplished whiner and a Weapons Grade Mary Sue. Her hobbies include Staring at her Thumbs for hours on end, complaining when people pay her compliments and flicking herself off to the Twilight series.
Naturally she is the most expensive prize in the whole auction, because a mystery man wearing a mask emblazoned with the word FORESHADOWING keeps on bumping up the bidding. Dickfacehead blows a hundred grand on her skinny ass and then he takes her up to his bedroom...?
Oh. Okay. Apparently this whole thing was taking place at his parents’ place. I didn’t know that. I must have missed it somewhere among the ‘And then he begins to move – really move’s and all the shatterings and explosions and general copypasta that ensues whenever these shitbirds get pelvic with one another.
And they’re about to do it again. He spanks her and we get a glimpse of a what a really
thrilling lover Dickfacehead must be.
“Open your legs,” he growls, and I comply. He strokes my behind and eases into me.
“This is going to be quick, baby,” he murmurs and grabbing my hips, he eases out then slams into me.
No wonder he was amazed to discover she was a virgin who didn’t even know how to masturbate. Mr. Two-Pump Chump must have thought all his Christmases had come at once – she’s got no frame of reference and no idea that he’s crap.
Then they come and nobody explodes or shatters this time but instead ‘spiraling into a healing orgasm that goes on and on and wrings me out and leaves me spent and breathless.’ Not to mention prone to run-on sentences.
They go downstairs for their one hundred thousand dollar first dance. The band plays I’ve Got You Under My Skin.
“I love this song,” Christian murmurs, gazing down at me. “Seems very fitting.”
How do you mean? In that she's a parasite and you make women itch? You're right - that is pretty fitting.
Ana meets Dickfacehead’s therapist, Dr. Flynn. He thinks she’s great because like I say – baaaad attack of the Bellas. Then she meets Mrs. Robinson and Mrs. Robinson thinks she’s great too, and also mentions that Dickfacehead is in love with her.
A hundred images dance through my head: the iPad, the gliding, flying to see me, all his actions, his possessiveness, $100,000 for a dance. Is this love?
How about the time he said he loved you? A large part of this book hangs upon Ana not remembering the time he said he loved her. This is ridiculous enough but is made even more absurd by the fact that she made a big deal of that little word – it was the only thing keeping her from running screaming when she found out he had a stalkeriffic dossier on her. Oh, and also it took place less than twenty four hours ago.
Blip. Blip. Bloop.
Then she dances with Dickfacehead’s dad, who asks her to call him Carrick, because that is his name. If my name was Carrick I’d ask people to call me Rick. Or Rocky. Or Trimalchio Thundercat Big Daddy Pumpington. Anything that wasn’t Carrick, basically.
Anyway, T.T. Big Daddy Pumpington tells Ana that Dickfacehead was a skinny little thing when they bought him at the crack baby sale, and that he didn’t speak for two years and only said his first word when his adopted sister Mia arrived. I don’t care because I’m marvelling at the fact that there is yet another section ahead of me. This party isn’t over yet. There are fireworks to come yet. These also have to be described (for those readers who have never experienced fireworks displays before) in the kind of crap travelogue/advertising-copy blah that passes for description in these books – stunning, dazzling, spectacular etc.
Also, Taylor – Dickfacehead’s bodyguard – is possibly the most interesting character in this book.
“...Taylor wants us to wait until the crowd disperses.”
Oh.
“I think that fireworks display probably aged him a hundred years,” he adds.
“Doesn’t he like fireworks?”
Christian gazes down at me fondly and shakes his head but doesn’t elaborate.
“So, Aspen...” he says...
Oh, isn’t she just precious when she doesn’t understand PTSD? And she’s so warm-hearted, caring about the staff like that. It’s all right, darling – whenever there are fireworks we lock Taylor in the boathouse and stuff cotton balls in his ears, same thing we do with the dog. He’ll be fine. The lower orders don’t feel things as keenly as we do. So...Aspen?
I don’t care how much these swine raised for charity – they are still terrible, terrible people.
I think the party is finally over. “Anastasia’s tired. We’re going home. Besides, we have a big day tomorrow.”
I hate to think what a big day looks like if this wasn’t one.
Oh, fucking hell. They’re still hanging around yacking about how great Ana is. Oh, and that big day? He’s called the gynecologist.
“Why?”
“Because I hate condoms,” he says, quietly. His eyes glint in the soft light from the paper lanterns, gauging my reaction.
“It’s my body,” I mutter, annoyed that he hasn’t asked me.
“It’s mine too,” he whispers.
These books are so feminist that I’m amazed anyone can read them without turning into Germaine Greer every time there’s a full-moon.
Also bear in mind that they have been back together for less than forty eight hours, and already he wants to shoot her full of hormones that might cause bloodclots, mood-swings, weight-gain and also possibly nuke her libido from orbit. For his convenience.
And he’s not even an inventive enough lover to know that there are many, many ways to fuck that don’t involve vaginal penetration. It’s kind of a mercy he’s not gay because then he’d be really confused.
Anyway, Ana finds a note from Mrs. Robinson and I have no fucks left to give. Then they drive home.
“It’s been a long day, eh, Anastasia?”
Yeah, you just hang a fucking lampshade on that, Ms. James. Alternatively, maybe learn a bit about pacing so that we don’t feel like we’re attending masked balls in Purgatory?
But no. This endless chapter has one last stupid fucking trick to pull on us.
“Mr. Grey, the tires on Ms. Steele’s Audi have been slashed and paint thrown all over it.”
Holy shit! My car! Who would do that? And I know the answer as soon as the question materialises in my mind. Leila.
Blip. Blip. Bloop.
Chapter Eight!
Dickfacehead’s security team are now on high alert and prowling around the apartment looking worried and important. Leila (AKA Golumette) probably has a gun – it’s part of the plot. Remember the plot? No, me neither.
For some reason Ana starts packing her things, and does so in another part of Dickfacehead’s Tardis-like apartment that the writer was too lazy to introduce in book one.
I begin packing around the table in the foyer and examine the paintings on the wall to distract myself.
I’ve never really looked at them before: all figurative paintings, all religious – the Madonna and child, all sixteen of them. How odd.
How do you miss a thing like...wait, aren’t you supposed to be super smart and observant? How did you...why did you...oh, fuck it.
Never mind. It’s probably just a heavily crowbarred hint at the Mommy issues flashback he was having in the prologue.
Then she goes to bed alone and he goes off with the security team. Then she wakes up with a dark figure staring at her. Obviously it’s Golumette. Dickfacehead’s security team aren’t very good at their jobs, but given how sweet he is to his minions I could totally forgive them slacking off and leaving him to get killed.
Ana gets out of bed and goes to find Dickfacehead, who is infodumping over the phone as usual, this time on Mrs. Robinson. Ana decides it’s Fuck O’Clock but then mentions she saw a weird shadow in the bedroom and that the balcony door is open. It suddenly occurs to these two rocket scientists that Golumette is still in the building, although I have no idea how she got onto the balcony. Maybe she’s Spiderman. Who gives a shit at this point? I just want them to go the fuck to sleep so that time can pass normally again.
Dickfacehead then decides to do a dramatic moonlight flit from the apartment, which was why Ana was packing at the beginning of the chapter. Unfortunately he hadn’t decided he was taking her away from the apartment at that point and nobody has thought to catch this continuity error, presumably because by this point the editor was dangling from the light fitting.
They drive. And talk about themselves. Then they go to a fancy hotel.
He...leads me into the main room where the fire is burning brightly. It’s a welcome sight. I stand and warm my hands while Christian fixes us both a drink.
“Armagnac?”
“Please.”
Oh dear. Open fire plus hyperactive fuck-monkeys plus author determined to win at Bad Erotic Fiction Bingo can only mean one thing – it’s Fuck O’Clock, folks. Th
at or they’re just rather hot and need to remove their clothes, since they’re drinking brandy beside a blazing fire in the middle of fucking June.
Interestingly, it’s officially the twelfth of June now. Isn’t that interesting?
Oh, and it wasn’t Fuck O’Clock at all – in fact they made love. Because they forged such a deep and lasting connection with each other throughout the Eleventh of June, a day in which they boned about three times, assuming the ice-cream crotch incident occurred after midnight. I was surprised to find it was only three times, largely because when they’re not fucking they’re usually talking about fucking...oh beg pardon...making love.
Twee and shallow – two repulsive qualities for the price of one.
The next day he announces they’re going to get some fresh air and Ana asks if it’s safe. Of course it’s safe – the author has plans for you and they don’t involve hanging around with your boyfriend’s security detail as if there’s an unhinged woman with a gun after you. How on earth are the readers supposed to masturbate to that?
