Fifty Shades Later: An Inevitable Conclusion (Fifty Shades of Neigh Book 3)

by Anna Roberts

  I sigh and shake my head. There's a long, painful pause and I realise he's not looking me in the eye any more. "Am I crazy," he says. "Or have they got a lot bigger since I last saw you?"

  "For goodness sake, Crispian..."

  "No, but they have, haven't they?"

  "I had a baby," I snort. "And you can't bring her here. I won't let you. It's not childproof - she might fall down a hole into the ick. It's bad enough at the penthouse..."

  Crispian stares at me. "You left our daughter in the penthouse? With the Oompa Loompas? Are you insane?"

  "No but..."

  "But nothing, Hanna. They drown small children in chocolate and throw them down garbage chutes - they're fucking famous for it."

  "Those were squirrels. And she's fine," I say, deciding it's probably not the best time to tell him about Aslan's new angry, fundamentalist streak. "Your mother's there. She's not going to get eaten by sandworms or anything."

  "Sandworms?"

  "Look, trust me. She'll be fine - she won't be able to reach the elevator buttons for...well...I don't know. How long does it take them to get that tall?"

  He stares at me, his mouth hanging open.

  "Don't you judge me," I say. "I'm not the one who pretended to be dead and didn't even know she existed. I...gestated her and stuff. For nine whole months. Besides, like this is even a child friendly environment. She likes juice boxes and tofu nuggets, not off-brand Cheetos and seagull. There's razor wire, broken glass and shit everywhere, Crispian. Actual poop. Don't you nerds have cleaners?"

  He pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs. "Hanna - we are captains of industry. We don't clean. We create cleaning jobs. It's just...nobody's stepped up to fill those jobs yet. Being captains of industry and all." He shakes his head as if to clear it, then holds out a hand. "Look, I understand your reservations. It's early days and all, but let me show you what I'm working on. The money is going to come flowing back in very soon - trust me."

  I follow him off the yacht and onto the filthy deck. These shoes are not exactly safe and I have a horrible vision of myself slipping and tumbling off the side of a platform into the unspeakable nasties floating below. Thankfully it's just a short stripper-heeled totter to another shipping container.

  "The office," says Crispian, throwing open the door. There is only the most rudimentary of lighting inside. It smells like pee and death. "This is where the magic happens," he says. "Well, where it's going to happen. At some point. We're just waiting on a few contingencies."

  Kate wanders up. Her Spanx look less bulky; presumably she's finished the contents of the mini-bar. "What up, shitlords?" she mutters, blowing dank smelling smoke all over us.

  "Hey," I say, hovering at the mouth of the container as Crispian disappears inside and starts doing things with laptops and light switches. "Where have you been?"

  "Oh, you know. Here and there. Scoping out the Randroid utopia. Looking for money."

  "Did you find any?"

  She inhales. "Nope," she says, in a squeaky, breath-held voice. "Just a lot of bullshit about bitcoins.” She exhales a fresh cloud of smoke. "And weed. So how was dinner? Or more to the point, what was dinner?"

  "Seagull," I murmur.

  "Well, that sounds gross."

  "It was."

  Crispian switches on some kind of projector at the back of the container. "Ladies," he says. "Come on in. You're just in time for my presentation."

  "Cool," says Kate, shuffling forward. "Dinner and a movie - what more could a girl ask for, Hanna?"

  "Um...a functional sewage system and some shoes?"

  "Picky picky."

  We sit down on a couple of chairs in front of the sheet that's subbing as a projector screen. Kate has a deckchair; I have an old office swivel chair with the stuffing hanging out of one side. I didn't want to risk the deckchair in this skirt.

  "Now," Crispian says, adjusting his glasses. He clicks something and a large Venn diagram appears on the sheet behind him. Nobody has actually ironed the sheet, so it’s impossible to make out what the words say. There are two pinkish circles and an intersecting purple oval in the middle. "Okay," he says, picking up a pool cue and pointing to the diagram. "This diagram represents the My Little Pony fandom and the demographic overlap..."

  Kate raises her hand.

  "Yes?" says Crispian.

  "Did you mean for it to look like a vagina?" asks Kate. "Or am I just really fucking high?"

  "You're really high," says Crispian, and clicks onto the next slide. This time it's a bar graph and the writing is even smaller, so it makes even less sense. "During the course of my market research," he continues. "I identified three core demographics - eight year old girls, bronies, and cloppers."

  Kate raises her hand again. "Cloppers?"

  "People who masturbate to My Little Pony," I murmur, my face on fire. I hate that I even know this.

  "Oh," says Kate, happily. "Perverts. Gotcha."

  Crispian turns the same colour as me. He always fell squarely into the third demographic. "Obviously the eight year old girls are no use to us," he says.

  "Thank Christ for small mercies," mutters Kate.

  He gives her a piercing look and carries on. "But there is significant overlap when it comes to Bronies and Cloppers. And while Hasbro is duty bound to cater to eight year old girls, their main demographic that means they cannot reasonably give us the adult material we desire, not without risking the wrath of a billion screaming soccer moms."

  Kate squints at him but says nothing. I have no idea what he's talking about - obviously the years offshore on this terrible stink-platform have affected his mind.

  "So," he explains. "I have identified a gap in the market."

  "For My Little Pony porn?" says Kate.

  Crispian laughs. "No. There's no real market for My Little Pony porn. Well, I mean - there is, but you can't legally make money from it because of copyright. Thankfully, I've identified a loophole."

  He clicks onto the next slide. This time I can read what it says. It's a suggestive-looking horse reclining on a rainbow that bears the words My Tiny Horsie.

  Kate snorts with laughter. "Are you fucking kidding me?"

  "I assure you I'm not, Miss Hannigan," says Crispian. "This is the perfect solution. Rebadged, rebranded..."

  "...knocked off..."

  "...and repackaged for the adult market," mutters Crispian, through clenched teeth.

  Kate stubs out her smoke. "Dude, you are going to get sued so hard your head will spin.”

  "I don't see how," says Crispian. "This is a completely separate franchise. With completely different ponies. You've got Hairity, who caters to the man who likes the more...hirsute woman. Then there's Butterface - she's more for the guys who like the lights off, or a little bit of rear entry, if you know what I mean..."

  He clicks through various slides. My mouth is hanging open. Kate looks like someone who has twitched back a drape and found herself gazing into Hell.

  "...then there's Rainbow Splash - I'm thinking lesbian erotica, golden showers a speciality. Then you've got Stinky Sty..."

  Thankfully we never get to hear what Stinky Sty does, because Kate leaps up and yanks the plug out of the projector.

  "Hey!" Crispian rounds on her. "What are you doing? I wasn't done."

  "You can carry on or I can puke the contents of your mini-bar all over you," she says. "Your choice."

  He turns back to me. "Hanna, don't you see? There's a fortune to be made. We'll be rich again - Russian mafia rich!"

  I shake my head. The ponies were always a bone of contention between us. I'm so confused - how can I go back to a man who is still a huge pervert? I mean, Bennett's kind of a pervert too, but at least that's only paddles and gimp masks and the occasional buttplugs. Suddenly even Mr. Stretchy doesn't seem so intimidating. And whatsmore, how am I supposed to be with a man who serves me seagull and bad Asti for dinner? This place is damp and awful and the humidity is making my weave frizz.

  "I'm sor
ry, Crispian," I say. "But I don't think I can be with you. It smells awful here."

  He stares at me, aghast. "But Hanna - I thought you understood me.”

  How can I tell him the truth? We’ve grown apart, mostly due to him being dead. It's an awkward moment, mercifully cut short when an Anonymous comes heaving up the platform and collapses bent double at the mouth of the shipping container. He pulls up his mask to wipe his face. Beneath it his face is red and sweaty.

  "Don't show your face, Anonymous," says Crispian. "God, what is wrong with you?"

  "Sorry boss," he says, wheezing for air. "Just thought you should know - mainlanders are here."

  "What mainlanders? These are the only mainlanders on board."

  "I dunno, Your Overlordness. Big guy and a Mexican transvestite. On Jet Skis."

  "Jet Skis?"

  "Yes sir. Said something about the author being determined to fit them in somewhere. Kinda like a madlib, sir."

  Kate sighs. "Well, it's been real, Cloppy. But looks like our ride's here. I would say it's been fun catching up, but you're still gross, so..."

  She drags me, teetering on my stripper shoes, down a sloping platform to some kind of dock. There are two Jet Skis bobbing in the ick. Bennett is aboard one and Jessica Waters is aboard the other. They both have pegs on their noses.

  "You came," says Kate, gazing at Jessica with what might be lesbianism.

  "Crispian?" gasps Bennett.

  "Hey bro."

  "You're alive?!"

  "Yes, he is!" I sob, as I scramble aboard the Jet Ski. "And he gave me seagull for dinner and I lost one of my Manolos and he made my weave frizz and he kidnapped Alicia!"

  "What?" says Crispian. "Alicia? What are you talking about?"

  "She's been kidnapped," says Bennett, scowling at his brother. "And now it all makes sense."

  Crispian shakes his head. "I didn't kidnap Alicia," he says. "I haven't seen Alicia since the night I faked my own death. Bennett, what the hell is going on?"

  "Probably something to do with that minor character who disappeared in between book two and this one," says Jessica.

  "You mean...there are two kidnappers?" I gasp.

  She shrugs. "How the fuck should I know, man? I just write books." She glances over her shoulder at Kate, who is clinging to her back like a baby monkey. A gay baby monkey. "You ready to go, mi Catalina?"

  "Am I ever," she says, glowing. "By the way, Equus - you might wanna gather up the goons and man the lifeboats. Your utopia appears to be on fire."

  And with that they jet off back to the shore, spraying a great wave of filth all over me and Bennett.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Meanwhile, Back With The Plot...

  When I return to the penthouse, I am exhausted. I've completely lost track of time.

  Well, that will happen. I don't think time has behaved normally since book two, when you went to a party for a whole two chapters.

  I attempt to ignore my Inner Goddess and wander into my ensuite to shower and brush my teeth. Someone has spray-canned the words SCAB WONKA MUST DIE on the feature wall and behind the toilet in ballpoint pen is the legend JESICA IS STILL A WHORE. My lifestyle never used to be this complicated.

  It's odd, but I've always thought that 'lifestyle' was one of those words dreamed up by otherwise bland people to justify their boring and meaningless existence. Like it's not enough to live, you have to do it in a certain 'style', which is usually a sort of expensive, organic beigeness. You know - that sort of self-indulgent, extra-virgin olive oil Paltrow pickiness which shouldn't really be allowed in a world where children live day to day on whatever they can forage from landfills.

  - Is there a point to this ramble, or are you just trying to annoy me?

  Both. I was just about to say it suits you - having a 'lifestyle' rather than a life. It's a very you kind of word. Like 'stunning' or 'vista'.

  I don't think I'm ever going to get the smell of raw sewage out of my weave glue. When did my life get so complicated? Daddy's in a coma, Alicia's been kidnapped and Crispian is still alive. What can this mean?

  It means you're an accidental bigamist.

  - What?

  You know. A bigamist. Like Mr. Rochester was trying to be on purpose in Jane Eyre.

  I sigh and gaze at my pale reflection in the bathroom mirror.

  - I'm so tired. You have no idea.

  I do, actually. You only sleep for section breaks and recently you've been passing out all over the place. If you sobered up and actually slept for once in a while, maybe time could pass normally again.

  - So it's my fault? Is that what you're saying? You're saying that the chaotic and yet interesting mess of my life is my own fault?

  No, but I am saying you'd be better equipped to deal with it if you stopped drinking and went the fuck to sleep. And maybe the pacing in this book would stop making readers feel like the time they did when they snorted some cheap and unspecified substance off the top of a toilet and spent the next forty-eight hours talking people's ears off and chewing gum until it did bad things to their digestive system.

  - The readers?

  Okay. The author. Fine. It's just one of the benefits of a higher education. Now, please - just go to bed.

  - But it's not time for a section break. Maybe I could have a symbolical dream instead?

  Anonymous masks, dead husband, horse porn, coffee spilled on your stripper heels, fedoras, minibars and Mexican transvestites - what can it all mean? There. Does that cover it?

  - Um, no. I was going to do a callback to the symbolical Versailles dream I was having back at the start of the book.

  No you don't. Everyone got the point - you're basically Marie Antoinette without the warmth, charm and maternal instinct. Now go away.

  - Fine.

  I hopefully spray some Chanel over my roots and tumble between the Egyptian cotton sheets into an exhausted sleep.

  Ah, that’s better. Has she gone?

  Good.

  So, while she’s conked out, we can catch up with the actual plot, such at it is.

  You will probably be thrilled to know that while Hanna was sleeping, Kate and Jesús were making up for lost time in one of the guest bedrooms. They locked the bathroom door in case of incursions through the Stargate, but were occasionally interrupted by Aslan who – being notoriously snotty enough when it came to ‘lipstick and nylons’ – was naturally scandalised to find a cross-dressing romance novelist nailing the nanny.

  Luckily the penthouse – like most properties owned by the Neighs – came with a well-appointed sex dungeon, and Kate was able to avail herself of an enormous bullwhip and do a spot of topless lion taming, which was a kink Jesús didn’t even know he had until it happened.

  It probably goes without saying that their sex life is a lot more interesting than Hanna’s.

  Meanwhile, the kidnapper kept calling the Neighs with increasingly distraught demands to take Alicia off his hands. Like most rabid fans, Alicia’s social filters and sense of the acceptable had been steadily eroded by echo chambers of like minded weirdos, until it had reached the point where she thought it was perfectly normal to talk to people about her erotic Sherlock Holmes fanfiction.

  The kidnapper had never considered himself a homophobe. Like most open-minded young men he’d been open to experimentation in college and considered himself a serious, if ‘ironic’ fan of Eighties Disco, particularly The Village People.

  Besides, it wasn’t like the people in the world of Alicia’s depraved imaginings bore any resemblance to any gay men he’d ever met – not unless all gay men had suddenly sprouted dog penises, lactating nipples and the ability to go into heat. Finally he conceded that the Neighs were unlikely to cough up the ransom and turned Alicia loose on the unsuspecting city.

  Across the city, Big Uncle Bob was stirring from his induced coma. Upon waking he said he had couldn't remember much about the Rascalcade incident but had some enlightening things to say about his near death experience.


  "It was weird," he said. "Being in a coma was just kind of dark and uneventful, until there was this sound - like a sort of high pitched droning. Sometimes it sounded like a human voice and other times it was just a buzz, like a really annoying power tool - or a dentist's drill. Yeah, like that. A dentist drill. A noise that could rattle your fillings. And then there was like this light - the whole shebang, everything they tell you, you know? Tunnel of light, floating up, leaving your body. Only I wasn't floating. I was kind of flailing in thin air, desperate to get away from this fucking noise.

  "Then it stopped suddenly and I fell back into my body. That's all I know. Is this gonna be in Fortean Times or something? Because I got abducted by aliens once..."

  Uncle Bob's awakening was further enlivened by the news that the Seasteading Institute had burned to the ground, insofar as anything can burn to the ground when at sea. This was good news for the environment and bad news for anyone aboard the platforms, although most of the self-styled captains of industry - displaying the kind of survival instinct usually associated with rodents - found their way to the lifeboats. Only two lives were thought to be lost, including that of a man who'd been officially dead for over two years anyway - Crispian Neigh.

  And so, in the cold, rainy light of whatever time of day or night it’s currently supposed to be, a ragged, garbage-scented figure slouches towards the penthouse...

  What? Don’t look at me like that. I’m allowed to do the ‘faked his own death’ thing twice – it’s a parody. Besides, in the original novels he was presumed dead for five pages, having been out of phone signal range for a whole eight hours. I can only work with what I’m given here.

  Anyway, Crispian Neigh once more cheated fate, the Reaper and international copyright law and should be ringing the doorbell right about...now.

  I wake from a symbolic dream to find myself disorientated - holy crap, what time is it? What day is it? And what the hell is that terrible smell? Someone is ringing the door buzzer.

  I fling open my bedroom door only to find Kate has already got to the intercom. She is once again half-naked in a way that I usually know means she has a man in her room, only this time I think she's finally succumbed to the light of lesbian love that was glowing from within when she scrambled aboard Jessica's Jet Ski. "Oh, it's you," she says, into the intercom. "Yeah - okay. Don't take the private elevator. The sandworms are hungry."