by Anna Roberts
Then he buys her a thirty thousand euro diamond bracelet to make up for putting hickeys on her tits. In a piece of fantastically dicked-up symbolism, the Eurotrash bling is wide enough to hide the handcuff welts on her wrists. Part of me already needs a nice hot cup of tea and a blanket.
Stretching up on tiptoes, I put my arms around his neck and kiss him…not for giving me the bracelet but for being mine.
And if you believe that, you’ll believe anything.
They drive around a bit and then something happens! There’s a fire! At Christian’s office! In Seattle! Or Portland! Or Vancouver! (Where do they actually live anyway?)
This is Christian’s cue to pick up the phone and do a lot of expository shouting down it so that we think he actually does work. He doesn’t. This guy puts the laissez faire in laissez faire capitalism. In about three books he’s done more or less fuck all and whenever he is in the office he’s busy e-mailing Soggy-knickers.
“Has he? Good…okay. I want a detailed damage report. And a complete run down of everyone who had access over the last five days, including the cleaning staff…Get hold of Andrea and get her to call me…Yeah, sounds like the argon is just as effective, worth its weight in gold.”
Damage report? Argon? It rings a distant bell from chemistry class – an element, I think.
It is, yes. It’s an inert gas. Rather like the contents of your head.
“We don’t know for sure that it was arson,” he says, cutting to the heart of my anxiety. My hand clutches my throat in fear. Charlie Tango and now this? What next?
A plot?
Or am I just being silly?
Chapter Four - It's Only A Small Luxury Yacht, Darling
I’m restless. Christian has been holed up in the onboard study for over an hour. I have tried reading, watching TV, sunbathing – fully dressed sunbathing – but I can’t relax, and I can’t rid myself of this edgy feeling.
Yeah. That’s boredom. I know it well.
…I remove the ludicrously expensive cuff and go to find Taylor.
“Mrs. Grey,” he says, startled from his Anthony Burgess novel.
So – let me get this straight. Taylor is a hard-as-nails Iraq veteran who listens to Puccini and reads Anthony Burgess without - and take note, Ana - wandering around loudly telling everyone who will listen that he does so. Welcome to one more reason why I’d actually like to be married to Christian Grey; boning the bodyguard. (There's Kindleporn of that, isn't there? There has to be.)
Anyway, Ana would like to go shopping. Because she’s a bookworm. Apparently she’s read the entire canon of Western literature and can’t be arsed to learn Mandarin this afternoon, so dumb-grunt Taylor must stir himself from Abba Abba and take Mess of the D’Urbervilles here to the nearest Gucci boutique.
I used to work for people like this. You can probably guess what we used to say about them behind their backs.
But Ana is nothing if not creative. She’s going to ruin Taylor’s afternoon in an unexpected way. Also possibly his life. Because she is a thing from Hell.
“I’d like to take the Jet Ski.”
His mouth drops open. “Erm.” He frowns, at a loss for words.
“I don’t want to bother Christian with this.”
He represses a sigh. “Mrs. Grey…um…I don’t think Mr. Grey would be very comfortable with that, and I’d like to keep my job.”
Oh, for heaven’s sake! I want to roll my eyes at him, but I narrow them instead, sighing heavily and expressing, I think, the right amount of frustrated indignation that I am not mistress of my own destiny.
Our little Ana is all grown up. And she is a bitch.
She goes into Christian’s study, tells him she’s going shopping and doesn’t mention the Jet Ski. Ana’s subconscious reminds her of this and is called a ‘harpy’ for her pains. Then she goes out and lies to Taylor, telling him that Christian has said she can take the Jet Ski.
Ana rides about on the Jet Ski and has fun for the first time in…well…ever. Then Taylor gets it in the neck from the boss.
“Mrs. Grey,” Taylor says nervously, his cheeks pink once more. “Mr. Grey is not entirely comfortable with you riding on the Jet Ski.” He’s practically squirming with embarrassment, and I realise he’s had an irate call from Christian. Oh my poor, pathologically overprotective husband, what am I going to do with you?
Not a second thought for the long-suffering bodyguard who has to deal with your tantrum-chucking manchild of a husband. See what I mean? Character development. And my my my, it’s not pretty.
Ana gets in the car, gets on her BlackBerry and starts e-mailing Christian. Again, I’ll just let my notes say it for me; it says ‘nooooooooooooooooooooooooooo’.
Why did I want to go shopping? I hate shopping. But deep down I know why, and I walk determinedly past Chanel, Gucci, Dior, and the other designer boutiques and eventually find the antidote to what ails me in a small, overstocked touristy store. It’s a little silver ankle bracelet with small hearts and little bells. It tinkles sweetly and it costs five euros. As soon as I’ve bought it, I put it on. This is me – this is what I like. Immediately I feel more comfortable. I don’t want to lose touch with the girl who likes this, ever.
Given that your little shopping trip almost cost a man his livelihood and you didn’t give two fucks, I’m going to say you’re pretty much there already, Ana. Welcome to the One Per Cent. You hellbeast.
She recalls hanging around the Louvre with Christian.
We were looking at the Venus de Milo at the time…Christian’s words echo in my head, “We can all appreciate the female form. We love to look whether in marble or oils or satin or film.”
Just not on the beach. There's a good girl.
It gives me an idea, a daring idea. I just need help choosing the right one, and there’s only one person who can help me. I wrestle my Blackberry out of my purse and call José.
“Who…?” he mumbles sleepily.
“José, it’s Ana.”
“Ana, hi! Where are you? You okay?” He sounds more alert now, concerned.
It’s always a good sign when you call your friends from your honeymoon and they react like you’ve been kidnapped.
“South of France, huh? You in some fancy hotel?”
“Um…no. We’re staying on a boat.”
“A boat?”
“A big boat.” I clarify, sighing.
“I see.” His tone chills…Shit. I should not have called him. I don’t need this right now.
Oh yeah. Like he needed to be woken up at what the hell o’clock in the morning. Do they not have time zones on Planet Ana?
Like I say, here’s some character development at last. Unfortunately she’s developed into a full-fledged, dead-eyed sociopath. Just like her husband.
Anyway, her brilliant idea was a camera. It wasn’t exciting
She asks him if he’d like to take nudey pictures of her.
What is he thinking? Oh, this is not the reaction I was expecting, and my subconscious glares at me like I’m a domesticated farm animal.
Ana, your subconscious is really, really weird. Just so you know.
Christian swallows and runs a hand through his hair, and he looks so lost, so confused. He takes a deep breath.
“For me, photos like those have usually been an insurance policy, Ana. I know I’ve objectified women for so long,” he says and pauses awkwardly.
He still does. Go out on deck with your tits out and guarantee he’ll start squawking ‘Mine, Mine, Mine’ like one of the seagulls from Finding Nemo. Go on. Just try it.
Well, anyway. It’s time for another one of those long, wangsty conversations about nothing. Because it’s not like there’s anything important going on elsewhere. Like his office being arsonised or anything.
“I am so confused,” he whispers. When he opens his eyes again, they are wide and wary, full of some raw emotion. Shit. Is it me? My questions earlier about his birth mom? The fire at his office?
How these bo
oks ever became international bestsellers?
Time for Ana to have another one of her thick-person psychological insights.
And in a possibly unique moment of extraordinary depth and clarity…
No. It actually says that. I’m not even kidding.
…it comes to me – the fire, Charlie Tango, the Jet Ski…He’s scared, he’s scared for me, and seeing these marks on my skin must bring that home.
Marks that he made. Because he didn’t want anyone else to see your boobs. But we’ll bypass they’re busy whining again.
“Is this about the fire? Do you think it’s connected somehow to Charlie Tango?...”
You mean, does he think that the guy who attempted to rape you in book two and who disappeared without anyone calling the police had anything to do with sabotaging the helicopter and setting fire to the office? Nah.
Christian then goes quiet, like he always does when there’s a plot point in the way of his issues. Ana gets out the camera and takes pictures of him. Then Christian decides not to sulk and everyone gets mood whiplash as he comes over all playful.
So, yeah – I’m kind of baffled now, because he’s supposed to be a control-freak and someone’s set fire to his office, but he’s not cutting his honeymoon short and is in fact rolling around on the bed like a teenager, giggling and taking selfies. I suppose I was asking too much for any kind of consistent characterisation, wasn’t I?
Then it’s time for sex. Because they haven’t boned in this chapter yet.
I gasp and moan against his lips, losing myself to his fervent passion. I dismiss the distant alarm bells in the back of my mind, knowing that he wants me, that he needs me, and that when it comes to communicating with me, this is his favourite form of self-expression.
I love how Ana is basically damning this marriage out of her own mouth; she’s not only admitted that she’s into him because he’s broken and because she wants to fix him, but now tacitly confesses that they fuck more than they talk.
After the awful sex they recite their wedding vows back to one another. For some reason. Probably wordcount reasons. Their wedding vows are also as stupid as they are.
“I promise to love you unconditionally…”
And I’m going to stop you there, Ana. Unconditionally. I’m sorry, but that’s bullshit. All love is conditional. Like some of the conditions of my love are that you remain reasonably true to the person I fell in love with and that if you are going to change then change in a way we can both live with. Like, if you take up serial killing or join a white supremacist group then we’re gonna have a problem; we’re not going to be sharing the same values anymore.
But whatever. We’re living in happy candy fucky nonsense land here, so on we go.
“I promise to love you unconditionally, to support you in your goals and dreams, to honour and respect you, to laugh with you and cry with you, to share my hopes and dreams with you, and bring you solace in times of need.”
Aww. It’s like Facebook threw up on my Kindle.
Then they cry and she’s all “Why won’t you talk to me, Christian?” and he’s all “No, but then we’ll have to pay attention to the plot,” and I’m so bored, reader. So bored.
He sighs and opens his eyes, his expression bleak. “It’s arson,” he says simply, and he looks suddenly so young and vulnerable.
We officially have a plot! It’s taking place on the other side of the world and they’ll probably ignore it for the next twenty-one chapters, but we have one!
The familiar painful ache swells inside me, and the profound sadness that I hold in my heart for Christian as a little boy seizes me once more. I know I would do anything for this man because I love him so.
I know everyone talks about how Christian Grey is basically an even less charming version of Patrick Bateman, but Ana really is a foul young woman. She’s like one of those creepy little fangirls who write horrifying torture porn about their favourite fictional characters, so that they can pity them and wallow in their beautiful, beautiful trauma.
Then there’s another flashback and they’re in Versailles this time. E.L. James attempts to give us a history lesson, because she’s been on Wikipedia.
Once a humble hunting lodge, it was transformed by the Roi Soleil into a magnificent, lavish seat of power, but even before the eighteenth century ended it saw the last of those absolute monarchs.
The Hall of Mirrors is of course ‘stunning’, and ‘breathtaking’, because God forbid our slack-jawed narrator cough out a word she didn’t directly rip out of a tourist brochure.
Christian tells her he would build the Hall of Mirrors just for her and then it’s back to the present.
“What are you thinking about?” Christian asks softly, taking a sip of his after dinner coffee.
“Versailles.”
“Ostentatious, wasn’t it?” He grins. I glance around the more understated grandeur of the Fair Lady’s dining room and purse my lips.
“This is hardly ostentatious,” Christian says, a tad defensively.
It’s only a small luxury yacht, darling.
They’ve got two more days of their honeymoon and just as predicted, he’s ignoring the plot. Then Ana gets an e-mail from Kate.
I skimmed over the last e-mail exchange because I was rocking back and forth, sobbing, trying to pretend that this wasn’t happening again. However, this has some interesting information.
It’s August. The 17th, to be precise. Given that they’ve been on their honeymoon for about two weeks they must have married in the first week of August.
They met in May. Of the same year.
Ana has discovered Skype. Too late. Skype would mean Kate could have conducted the interview from her sickbed and Ana and Christian would never have met. This whole book series could have been avoided.
Kate is curious about the arson attack, because she is the only person in this book who hasn’t had her brain surgically removed and set on fire.
Then Ana goes to bed and has a nightmare about the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles, because in the dream Christian is walking away from her. Then she wakes up and it’s okay.
Drinking in his scent, I curl around him, trying to ignore the loss and devastation I felt in my dream, and in that moment, I know that my deepest, darkest fear would be losing him.
Four months. Just saying.
Chapter Five - World's Dullest Car Chase
Chapter Five sees Ana waking up (what’s new?) to freak out because her husband is not in bed beside her, but it’s okay, because he’s ‘watching me from the small, upholstered armchair by the bed’. Because he used to be Edward Cullen.
“Hey, don’t panic. Everything’s fine,” he says, his voice gentle and soothing – like he’s talking to a cornered wild animal. Tenderly, he smooths the hair back from my face and I calm immediately. I see him trying and failing to hide his own concerns.
Wait, what are they fretting about now? Oh, I don’t even remember. Was it the fire that happened on the other side of the world? The one that they blithely ignored in favour of rolling around giggling and taking photographs of each other? Whatever. Twitchy Codependence – it’s the new True Love.
Ah yes. Here we are. The fire!
...I don’t want him to know how worried I am about the arson incident. The painful recollection of how I felt when Charlie Tango was sabotaged and Christian went missing – the hollow emptiness, the indescribable pain – keeps resurfacing; the memory nagging me and gnawing at my heart.
He was missing for five pages. That was about eight hours in book time. If I don’t hear from someone for eight hours I assume they’re at work. You know, that thing he’s supposed to do all the time because he’s a raging workaholic. Also if you’re going to have a character get into a helicopter which then catches fire, don’t resolve the conflict in five pages. Truly talented authors would know how to spin such a thing into a masterly cliffhanger. (Ahem.)
He leans forward and kisses me between my brows. “When you frown, a little V
forms just here. It’s soft to kiss. Don’t worry baby, I’ll look after you.”
Yeah. He’s a creepy, creepy man.
Ana doesn’t want to go home, because she was having such a lovely time being hog-tied, branded, bought expensive jewellery and trying to get the staff fired.
I don’t want to leave. I’ve relished being with him 24/7, and I’m not ready to share him with his company and his family.
