Lighter Shades of Grey

by Cassandra Parkin

  So, Christian. All that stuff about “You can walk away at any time and I won’t pressure you” was just a big old lie, then.

  In two places at once

  “How…?”

  He smiles at me.

  “I’m still at the Heathman.” (p189)

  “…and this thing apparently sitting on your bed is just my holographic avatar.”

  Ana is surprised by Christian’s man-about-town knowledge

  “And you decided that it was nice knowing me? Do you mean knowing me in the biblical sense?”

  Oh shit. I flush.

  “I didn’t think you were familiar with the Bible.” (p190)

  Hey Ana, d’you know? I am a flag-bearing, card-carrying, third-generation Atheist who wasn’t even christened. I only go to church for other people’s weddings, I’ve been known to put my iPod on during the sermon, and the whole time I’m in there I’m tormented by the irrational fear that I’ll shrivel away into a little pile of smoking dust.

  Nonetheless, even I am somehow aware of the idiom “and Dick knew Jane, fnar fnar”. Amazing.

  Christian Grey, date-rapist

  “I needed time to think,” I whisper.

  …“Well, I thought I should come and remind you how nice it was knowing me.” (p191)

  Well, I think someone ought to pick up the phone and call the cops, because this is looking perilously like Christian doesn’t know how to take no for an answer.

  But then I’m not a fucked-up billionaire or a clueless recently-deflowered virgin, so what the hell would I know?

  Ana’s active participation is not required

  I take pre-emptive action and launch myself at him… (p191)

  He moves so quickly, sitting astride me as he fastens my wrists together, but this time, he ties the other end of the tie to one of the spokes of my white iron headboard…

  His look is triumphant, mixed with relief. (p191 – 192)

  Am I the only one who thinks maybe Christian might be a whole lot happier with an alarmingly realistic sex-doll?

  Sinister and sinisterer

  I know he’s talking to Kate – oh no…he’s practically naked. What’s she going to say. I hear a faint popping sound. What’s that? (p193)

  Photo: Theis Kofoed Hjorth [flickr]

  Just a thought.

  Is this even physically possible?

  [Ana is tied to the bedpost by her wrists]

  He stares down at me for a moment, measuring my need, then he grabs me suddenly and flips me over. (p195)

  …and dislocates your shoulder in the process.

  Just in case there was any doubt about exactly how creepy Christian is…

  “So, that e-mail was your idea of a joke.”

  “Only certain things are funny, Anastasia. I thought you were saying no, no discussion at all.” (p197)

  I love that he only bothers to check this after he turns up uninvited, ties her to her bed and has extremely rough sex with her.

  Seriously, am I the only one seeing this?

  [Kate to Ana] “Why did he turn up today?”

  “I sent him an email.”

  “Asking him to drop by?”

  “No, saying I didn’t want to see him anymore.”

  “And he turns up? Ana, that’s genius.” (p201)

  Ana’s Alternative Dictionary

  Genius, (n):

  Exceptional intellectual or creative power or other natural ability

  Exceptional intellectual or creative power applied solely for the purpose of forcing unwilling partners into having sex with you

  Straining at a gnat

  “He came here to fuck me, that’s all….he uses sex as a weapon.”

  “Fucks you into submission?” She shakes her head disapprovingly…

  “…Christians’ terminology. He doesn’t do the love thing.”

  “I knew there was something weird about him. He has commitment issues.”

  …Oh Kate…I wish I could tell you everything, everything about this strange, sad, kinky guy, and you could tell me to forget about him. (p201 – 202)

  Ana, if Kate’s not flinching at “He uses sex as a weapon”, I seriously doubt that adding on “…and he has a bed padded with oxblood leather” is going to tip her over the edge into telling you to Leave The Bastard.

  Ana’s mom is very supportive

  My mom is oozing contrition, desperately sorry not to make my graduation. Bob has twisted some ligament which means he’s hobbling around all over the place. Honestly, he’s as accident-prone as I am…my mother has to wait on him hand and sore foot. (p207)

  Dear Ana’s mom. If your husband is capable of hobbling, then he is capable of fending for himself for a couple of days.

  Although, fair play to the man – it’s probably fair enough that Bob comes first. After all, his twisted ligament is a once-in-a-lifetime event that represents the culmination of four years of hard work, whereas your daughter graduates from college at least three or four times a year, right?

  At work, Ana gets harassed by the boss’s son

  Paul is back from Princeton…he follows me round the store all day asking me for a date. It’s annoying. (p212)

  Ana, I think you should lawyer up and start suing all these bastards who keep coming onto you at inappropriate moments. Seriously. You’ll make enough to retire on.

  Multiple personality disorder?

  [Ana’s stepfather’s] quiet fortitude is what I need now, what I miss. Maybe I can channel my Inner Ray for my meeting tomorrow. (p212)

  I bet the reason Inner Ray hardly ever shows up is because he can’t stand it when your Inner Goddess starts bustin’ her moves all over the inside of your head.

  Ana’s relationship with make-up

  I rarely wear make-up – it intimidates me. (p213)

  Oh, me too. I was intimidated once by six lipsticks and a mean-looking mascara wand. They took my bag off me and wouldn’t give it back for ages. Then they found my diary and read extracts out loud and laughed at me. It was awful.

  Obligatory clunky piece of intertextuality (4)

  My…references are all fictional: Elizabeth Bennett would be outraged, Jane Eyre too frightened, and Tess would succumb, just as I have. (p225)

  Elizabeth Bennett would have torn a strip off Christian and made him totally re-assess his entire approach to life, thus transforming himself into a nice young man who any woman would be delighted to marry. More importantly, if he hadn’t transformed, she wouldn’t have married him anyway, just on the off-chance that somehow it might work out. Because Elizabeth Bennett knew in her bones that there was more to life than a man.

  Jane Eyre routinely refers to Mr Rochester as “My Master” and actively prefers him to pinch her earlobe and insult her, rather than kiss her gently and tell her she’s beautiful. So I imagine she’d have been rather into all of this.

  Tess. Was. Raped.

  A use for all these people who keep following Ana around

  My inner goddess frowns at me. You can do this, she coaxes – play this sex god at his own game….what to do? My inexperience is an albatross around my neck. (p225)

  Maybe you could get your inner goddess to hold the albatross for you.

  Christian the traffic cop

  “Is this [car] roadworthy?” He’s glaring at me now. (p228)

  No. That’s why it’s been taking her safely from A to B for the last four years, why Ana has up-to-date tabs and insurance and why the cops haven’t pulled her over and confiscated it.

  Chapter Fourteen

  In which Ana has a proper / improper dream, then graduates

  At last, a real dream

  Christian is standing over me grasping a plaited, leather riding crop. He’s wearing old, faded, ripped Levis and that’s all…

  …He flicks the crop and it hits my sweet spot with a sharp slap, and I come, gloriously, shouting my release.

  Abruptly I wake, gasping for breath, covered in sweat and feeling the aftershocks of my orgasm…what t
he hell just happened? (p231)

  And yet, Ana, when you spent all night dreaming about disembodied eyeballs and foam on top of coffee-cups, you felt it all made total sense.

  Surprise about things that are inherently not surprising (3)

  I’m in my bedroom alone. How? Why? (p231)

  Because you came in here last night and got into bed and went to sleep.

  Time for Ana to invest in a tinfoil hat

  I sit bolt upright, shocked…wow. It’s morning. (p231)

  Argh! Timeslip! You must have been abducted by aliens!

  You didn’t know this? Really?

  I didn’t know I could dream sex. (p231)

  Ana, did you actually go through puberty like the rest of us?

  Basic anatomy fail (4)

  Unbidden, I recall my dream from this morning, and the muscles in my belly do the delectable clench thing. (p235)

  Ana, I sincerely hope that the muscles doing the “delectable clench thing” are actually the ones in your vagina. If your stomach muscles are clenching, you’re suffering from diarrhoea, which is very rarely considered delectable.

  We couldn’t be bothered to write this bit

  [At Kate and Ana’s graduation. Kate is Valedictorian]

  Miss Katherine Kavanagh has taken the stage…She’s so composed and funny, the girls beside me erupt on cue at her first joke. Oh, Katherine Kavanagh, you can deliver a good line. (p236)

  I had a really funny joke to go with this observation. I didn’t bother writing it down because my pen was on the other side of the table and I didn’t want to reach that far, but trust me, it was brilliant. You’d have loved it.

  Things that sound good until you picture someone actually doing them (10)

  My jaw falls to the floor. (p237)

  But if you pick it up real quick and wedge it back on before anyone notices, you might get away with it.

  Time and eternity

  …it takes just over an hour before I hear my name. (p238)

  The ceremony takes another hour. It’s interminable. (p238)

  Or maybe it just took two hours.

  And I’m so worried about the baggage retrieval system they’ve got at Heathrow

  [Christian to Ana] “I’ve been worried about you…you went home in that deathtrap you call a car.” (p239)

  Oh Christian. And even the sight of her sitting safely with all the other students wasn’t enough to reassure you…sucks to be you, huh.

  Meet the parents, round two

  [Ana to Christian] “Introduce you to my dad as what? ‘This is the man who deflowered me and wants us to start a BDSM relationship’?” (p240)

  According to Emily Post, Ana - when introducing your significant other, it’s rarely considered good form to specify either the precise circumstances of your own prior sexual history, or the exact kind of sex you’ve been having.

  A more gracious way to handle the situation is to simply say “Ray, this is my friend Christian, Christian, this is my stepdad Ray”, and leave everyone else to fill in the blanks.

  It’s just possible there is more than one drink available at this venue

  Ray hands me a glass of champagne or cheap fizzy wine, I suspect. It’s not chilled, and it tastes sweet. My thoughts turn to Christian…he won’t like this. (p241)

  Well, he’ll be shrivelling up with thirst later, then, won’t he.

  For the space of one line of dialogue, this book becomes good

  “So how long have you kids known each other?” Ray looks impassively from Christian to me. (p242)

  Okay, E L James, that’s a genuinely great line. Dry, deadpan, contextually appropriate.

  Ray, I think I might actually love you a little bit.

  ….and we’re back in the room

  “We met when Anastasia came to interview me for the student magazine.”

  “Didn’t know you worked on the student magazine, Ana.” Ray’s voice is a quiet admonishment, revealing his irritation. Shit. (p243)

  Okay, E L James, maybe I don’t love Ray after all.

  Also, I need to call my dad, like, right now. I just realised that in my regular debrief of all my movements for the last seven days, I forgot to tell him that Tuesday at 1pm, I went to the shop to buy eggs.

  And while we’re at it, the word you’re looking for is “admonition”.

  Conversations that would never happen (2)

  Ray raises his eyebrows and smiles…and off [Ray and Christian] go, talking fish. (p243)

  “Oh hey, you know what fish are great? Trout.”

  “Trout! Get outta town, I freakin’ love trout!”

  “They’re so freakin’ cool, man. Gotta love trout.”

  “And you know what else? Catfish.”

  “Catfish! Man they’re so great, aren’t they?”

  “You know it, pal…”

  “Oh hey – this one time, at band-camp, there was this totally great fish – wait for it – it was a salmon!”

  “Oh, man, I love salmon! They’re so awesome, aren’t they? Hey, I tell you what fish I really can’t stand, though.”

  “Hit me with it, bro.”

  “Sunfish. Am I right or am I right?”

  “Oh yeah, you’re totally right. Sunfish are for losers…”

  Photo: malias [flickr]

  Just because you’re paranoid…

  What have they been discussing apart from fish? (p244)

  Oh, how much they both enjoy inflicting physical and emotional pain on you, I should think, Ana. There’s really no other possibility.

  An unusual filter through which to view the world

  “Well, any man who likes and knows his fly-fishing is okay with me.” (p246)

  Ray, I am beginning to see why your wife left you.

  I wonder if Kate knows anything about fly-fishing?

  Chapter Fifteen

  Emotional Abuse 101: a practitioner’s master-class from Mr Christian Grey

  Emotional abuse typically takes one of three basic forms, with many abusers employing all three strategies to achieve their ends:

  Aggressing – Direct forms can include name-calling, accusing, blaming, threatening, and ordering. Indirect forms (often disguised as “helping”) often include an underlying judgmental view of “I know best”.

  Denying – this includes Invalidating (a refusal to acknowledge reality), Withholding (refusal to communicate, refusal to listen, emotional withdrawal) and Countering (a denial of any viewpoints of feelings which differ from the abuser’s own). This strategy is often known as Gaslighting, after the iconic Ingrid Bergman film in which a woman is convinced of her own (non-existent) madness by an emotionally abusive husband.

  Minimising – this less extreme form of denial undermines the victim’s emotional experiences or reactions by suggesting the victim is “too sensitive” or “blowing things out of proportion”. This encourages the victim to believe their own perceptions and emotions are unreliable, and to accept the abuser’s view as the correct one.

  Ana shares her knowledge of American wildlife

  I head into the kitchen. Nervous, butterflies flooding my stomach, it’s like having a panther or mountain lion all unpredictable and predatory in my living room. (p250)

  Ana, since butterflies are not made out of liquid, it’s not possible for them to “flood” your stomach.

  In the context of American wildlife, “panther” and “mountain lion” both describe the same species - Puma Concolor. So you’ve basically just said, “It’s like having a panther or a panther in my living room”.

  Big cats are actually pretty predictable creatures. If they’re hungry, they’ll eat you. If they’re pissed off at you, they’ll attack you. If they’re scared, they’ll run away from you. If they’re bored, they’ll ignore you. I guess you could say they have a limited emotional range.

  Your last sentence is missing a pronoun.

  And might also benefit from either being separated into two sentences, or from the insertion of a semi-colon.r />
  Christian gives Ana some advice

  “Don’t think, Anastasia. Not about this.” His tone is quiet and serious.

  How can I not think? (p251)

  Hey Ana, don’t beat yourself up. You’ve done a decent job of it so far.

  Strategy one: countering

  “[You buying me things] makes me feel cheap,” I murmur.

  Christian runs his hand through his hair, exasperated.

  “It shouldn’t. You’re over-thinking it, Anastasia. Don’t place some vague moral judgement on yourself based on what others might think.” (p252)

  Actually, Christian, Ana isn’t “over-thinking” anything. “Over-thinking” means reaching an erroneous conclusion that runs counter to gut instinct. In fact, her gut instinct about you buying her $14,000 first editions of “Tess of the d’Urbervilles” has always been “Hell, no”.

  Ana isn’t expressing an opinion she thinks other people might hold; she’s expressing a feeling she herself has. The clue to this is in her sentence construction, where she uses the clause “It makes me feel” rather than “Other people might think”.

  Strategy two: aggressing

  [Christian to Ana] “So what are you doing about work in Seattle?”

  …“I have interviews for a couple of intern places.”

  “You were going to tell me this when?” (p254)

  Maybe it would just be easier all round if Ana kept a minute-by-minute log of everything that happened to her during the day, then emailed it to both Ray and Christian shortly before going to sleep.

  It is better to give than to receive

  “Anal intercourse can be very pleasurable, trust me….”

  I blink up at him. How does he know it’s pleasurable?

  “Have you done that?” I whisper.

  “Yes.” (p256)

  Christian, as ER nurses everywhere know, men can get pleasure out of sticking their erect penises into pretty much anything, including vacuum hoses, steel benches, milk bottles, narrow-necked vases and electric sanders. This does not automatically mean the vacuum hoses, benches, bottles, vases or sanders are having an equally good time.