by Anna Roberts
Yes, Ana. He probably was. And have you still learned nothing about prepositions?
Sawyer bends down and gingerly picks up the Glock.
“Should you be doing that?” I ask.
No. Next question.
They find duct tape in Jack’s pocket and Ana decides she’s not going to think about that. I don’t know why. This kind of thing used to get her all hot and bothered once upon a time. Remember when Christian Grey came into the hardware store and bought the Serial Killer Starter kit? She couldn’t drop her drawers fast enough. Maybe it’s like keeping dossiers on people or kidnap or taking creepy photos of people when they’re asleep – it’s okay when he does it because he’s rich and pretty and smells good.
“Should we call the police?” I mutter, trying to hide my fear.
Yes. Yes you should.
Ryan and Sawyer glance at each other.
“I think we should call the police,” I say rather more forcefully, wondering what’s going on between Ryan and Sawyer.
Potentially hot, but yes. You should call the police.
This man – I glance down at Hyde again – has invaded my home, and he needs to be removed by the police.
Yes he does. Call the police.
I decide I must be missing something, so I decide to call Christian.
Oh dear. Can you guess what Ana’s missing? I can.
She leaves Christian a voicemail and finally tells Sawyer to call the police. Because for some reason she can’t lift a phone. Although let’s be fair, she is pretty fucking drunk right now.
The police come and Ana’s miffed that one of them looks grumpy.
I suspect he’s been woken and dragged from his warm bed because the home of one of Seattle’s most influential and wealthy businessmen has been breached.
Yes, if it was anyone else he’d stay tucked up with his teddy bear in happy snoozy-snoozy dreamland. Seriously, Ana – not everyone exists to kiss your ass.
I am tired – beyond tired – and I want to go to bed.
You see, she had a little drink about an hour ago...
Anyway, it’s time for a section break, so after eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich Ana goes to bed so that she can wake up all fresh for the next part of the chapter.
She wakes up with a hangover to see Christian sitting beside the bed. Yep. That was why he wasn’t answering his phone – the mad bastard was already on a plane home so that he could treat her to the full force of his latest tantrum.
He must be a joy to do business with, mustn’t he? How has this man got any money left at all? He’s flinging a fortune into the black hole of SIP and apparently when he does go to work he takes off in the middle of the night and runs home to yell at his wife.
He’s also drinking Scotch, which explains why he’s taken to brushing his teeth before breakfast – so that the fumes don’t knock the housekeeper over when he wends his merry, drunken way to his morning eggs and bacon. Or it would, if the author had even the first clue about how writing works.
Slowly I pull myself up into a sitting position, not taking my eyes off him. My mouth is dry. “How long have you been sitting there watching me sleep?”
“Long enough.”
“You’re still mad.” I can barely speak the words.
He gazes at me, as if considering his response. “Mad,” he says, as if testing the word, weighing up its nuances, its meaning. “No, Ana. I am way, way beyond mad.”
Bear in mind he’s been at this same state of emotional intensity since he found out she went out drinking without his permission. That must have been one hell of a transcontinental flight.
Flight attendant: Would you like some nuts, sir?
Fuckface: Nuts?
Flight attendant: Honey roasted peanuts, sir.
Fuckface: (staring fit to pop a blood vessel) I think you’ll find it’s gone way, way beyond honey roasted peanuts.
Ana begs him not be ‘monosyllabic and cold’.
“Anastasia, cold is not what I’m feeling at the moment. I’m burning. Burning with rage. I don’t know how to deal with these” – he waves his hand, searching for the word – “feelings.” His tone is bitter.
“I don’t know how to deal with these – I don’t know what you peons call them – peanuts. God damn. Leave me. Leave me to my beautiful, beautiful rage.”
It’s a good thing he’s ridiculous, otherwise he’d be fucking terrifying.
Ana crawls into his lap and tries to coax him to forgive her, but he sits there like a dummy and pouts.
“I want to punish you,” he whispers. “Really beat the shit out of you.”
Okay, maybe not so ridiculous now. This right here is the essence of why the kink community finds these books horrifying. When two (or more) people engage in a spot of BDSM they are doing it because it’s generally agreed that everyone involved will get a kick out of it. Not because one person wants to hurt another. That’s not kink; that’s just violence.
It’s not about to get any better, so hold hands for the next bit.
My heart leaps into my mouth. Fuck. “I know,” I whisper as my scalp prickles.
“Maybe I will [beat the shit out of you].”
“I hope not.”
He hugs me tighter. “Ana, Ana, Ana. You’d try the patience of a saint.”
Oh dear. ‘Look what you made me do to you.’ Yeah. This has just taken a turn for the very, very unsettling. I feel like this exchange should be printed out in huge type and plastered over every billboard and book cover that has touted Fifty Shades as this liberating and wonderful romance.
This isn’t the man of anyone’s dreams. He’s the man of plenty of people’s nightmares though.
Thankfully this piece of shit is only a fictional character, and we can laugh and ridicule him like the overgrown toddler he is. For all your real life Christian Grey needs, see the list of websites at the end of the book.
Ana gets into the shower with him and tries to hit him up for sex. He refuses and Ana freaks the fuck out.
My mind goes into free fall – has this ever happened before? My subconscious shakes her head, her lips pursed...I feel like I’ve been slapped, hard. Rejected. And a lifetime of insecurity spawns the ugly thought that he doesn’t want me anymore.
At this point it’s just sad. Honestly? People think this is the love story for the ages? These are awful people who exploit every single one of each other’s mental weaknesses at every chance they get.
Ana gets dressed up, eats breakfast and goes to brush her teeth one at a time, because even in the wake of her husband’s admission that he wants to beat the shit out of her, we still need to piss about narrating every mindless detail of the day.
As I brush them, I’m reminded of Christian’s sulk over the wedding vows. He holed up in his study then, too. Is this what this is? Him sulking?
In a word, yes.
I shudder as I recall his subsequent nightmare. Will that happen again?
Oh, you better believe it will. Extra thrashing, wailing and mommy issues. Just in case you were thinking of calling the whole thing off.
“You’re going?” he says when he sees me.
“To work? Yes, of course.” Bravely I walk toward him and rest my hands on the edge of the breakfast bar. He gazes at me blankly.
“Christian, we’ve hardly been back a week. I have to go to work.”
“But - " He stops and rakes his hand through his hair.
But nothing. You want it both ways, Tantrum McManbaby? You want her to stick around all day so that you can hmmph and turn your back every time she walks in the room? Grow up.
For once she calls his bullshit bluff and goes to work. Elizabeth comes in to ask if she’s okay after Jack’s arrest. If you remember Fifty Shades Darker you’ll remember that when Jack attempted to rape Ana and then disappeared Elizabeth said something about how he’d done something to her too. Ana doesn’t remember and is simply baffled as to why Elizabeth is asking. Because Ana is terrible.
&nbs
p; And because she’s at work it’s e-mail time. Christian e-mails Ana to say that the detective in charge of the case will be visiting Ana to take her statement. She e-mails back hoping to coax him out of his sulk ‘but there’s nothing. Christian is not in the mood to play today.’
What the fuck is wrong with these idiots?
I sit back. Can I blame him? My poor Fifty was probably frantic, back in the early hours of the morning. Then a thought occurs to me. He was in his tux when I woke this morning. What time did he decide to come back from New York? He normally leaves functions between ten and eleven. Last night at that hour, I was still at large with Kate.
Astonishingly Ana has figured something out. Yep – he didn’t come rushing back from New York because the apartment had been broken into and because he was worried about you. He came tearing back because you disobeyed him about going out for drinks.
If Christian came back merely because I was out, then he was overreacting.
No, honey. If Christian came back merely because you were out, he’s a fucking psycho. You need a psychiatrist and a lawyer, in no particular order. And a place to stay. Call your mother.
I have to know – did he come back because of Cocktailgate or because of the fucking lunatic?
Which fucking lunatic?
There’s some more e-mail nonsense and then Ana writes a long, sane, lucid e-mail rather like the one she wrote in Fifty Shades of Grey. There’s no nonsense, no pretentiousness and no twee attempts at being witty. She communicates her frustration at being left out of the loop regarding the Jack Hyde situation and that she was perfectly safe when she was out drinking because she had two security guards with her at all times.
It’s almost a stab at half-way decent characterisation – an inarticulate English Major who communicates more effectively in writing. Unfortunately this is still Fifty Shades Freed and we’re still living in happy fucky dumb-dumb land where creepy, controlling and violent men are super, super hot.
He e-mails back.
As ever, Mrs. Grey, you are forthright and challenging in e-mail.
Of course she is. Via e-mail she’s less likely to be cock-struck by the angry little stump you keep waving at her.
Perhaps we can discuss this when you get home to OUR apartment.
Anyone with half a brain and a passing acquaintance with this mess of a series can guess what’s going to happen next. They’re going to rehash the argument in a situation where he can use sex to manipulate her, she’s going to cave, because for some reason she still hasn’t learned what the massage attachment on the shower head is actually for, and they’re going to play out the same tedious, mommy-issues, you’re-so-broken-and-that’s-so-hot psychodrama that they’ve played out all along. And he’ll probably have one of his ‘nightmares’ and cry in his sleep. Because he’s fucking fourteen or something.
This chapter is going on forever, by the way. The detective turns up and tells Ana that Jack is in custody. ‘With what he’s charged with, he should be with us for a while.’
So at least two months then. Then they’ll let him out to enrol in Art School.
As [the detective] leaves, I wonder exactly what Hyde has been charged with. No doubt Christian won’t tell me. I purse my lips.
Why don’t you ask the detective who was just here, Ana? I know I should be feeling much sorrier for her at this point, but she doesn’t make it easy. She heads home, bracing herself for an almighty ‘fight’. (About forty pages of whining, to you and me.)
...Prescott kindly opens [the door] for me. She’s been so quiet today. I think I prefer her this way.
It's quite remarkable how Ana consistently undermines any sympathy the reader might be developing for her, isn't it?
I drop my briefcase in the hall and head into the great room. I stop. Holy fuck. “Good evening, Mrs. Grey,” Christian says softly. He’s standing by the piano, dressed in a tight black t-shirt and jeans...those jeans – the ones he wore in the playroom. Oh my. They are overwashed pale blue denim, snug, ripped at the knee, and hot. He saunters over to me, his feet bare, the top button of the jeans undone, his smouldering eyes never leaving mine.
“Good to have you home. I’ve been waiting for you.”
Told you.
Chapter Eleven - Rah Rah Ro Ma Ma
“I like your jeans,” I murmur. He grins a disarming wolfish grin that doesn’t reach his eyes. Shit – he’s still mad. He’s wearing these to distract me.
When it’s so obvious that even Ana gets it, you know it’s obvious.
“I understand you have issues, Mrs. Grey,” he says silkily...
Oh, does she ever. And here we go. Here we are plunged headlong into the hell-hot mess of horrid squealing that constitutes chapters eleven and twelve. While it's happily free of e-mail nonsense, it has everything else I have come to hate about these wretched books – endless circular arguments that go nowhere, pants that hang from hips ‘in that way’, sex scenes crowbarred in for the hell of it, domestic abuse dressed up as true love, section breaks only occurring when someone falls asleep and last, but oh-so-not least, passive-aggressive piano playing.
“Why did you fly back from New York?” I whisper. Let’s get this over and done with.
“You know why.” His tone carries a warning ring.
“Because I went out with Kate?”
“Because you went back on your word, and you defied me, putting yourself at unnecessary risk.”
This is one of those times when I have nothing to add to the notes I’ve already made. The note says ‘wah wah I’m a giant baby’.
“Christian, I changed my mind,” I explain slowly, patiently, as if he’s a child. “I’m a woman. We’re renowned for it. That’s what we do.”
No we don’t. I’m a woman and I thought these books were a pile of misogynist shit from chapter one of book one. I’m on chapter eleven of book three and if anything my opinion has solidified. Based on...you know...evidence.
He blinks at me as if he doesn’t comprehend this.
See? With pre-chewed prose like this, how could I possibly change my mind?
...deep down I’m glad he came back. In spite of his fury, I’m glad he’s here in one piece, angry and smouldering in front of me.
I’m sorry? When was he in any danger? He went on a business trip to New York. On his private jet. Are you seriously saying you would rather put up with this disgraceful behaviour than spend another second apart?
The bestselling romance trilogy of all time, Ladies and Gentlemen. I have nothing more to add.
“Oh, Ana,” he whispers as he tightens his hold on me so that I can barely breathe. “If something were to happen to you - ”
“...I’d have to find another braindead co-dependent with no self-esteem.”
“I don’t know how to deal with this anger. I don’t think I want to hurt you,” he says, his eyes wide and wary. “This morning, I wanted to punish you, badly, and - ” He stops, lost for words I think, or too afraid to say them.
“You were worried you’d hurt me?” I finish his sentence for him, not believing that he’d hurt me for a minute, but relieved too. A small vicious part of me feared it was because he didn’t want me anymore.
Bestselling romance trilogy of all time. “Better that he wants to beat the shit out of me than he doesn’t want me at all.”
“...I knew what you said was an empty, idle threat. I know you’re not going to beat the shit out of me.”
“I wanted to.”
“No you didn’t. You just thought you did.”
I have nothing funny to say about this, mostly because it’s not funny. It’s just terribly, terribly sad.
Anyway, they make up and she wants to talk. He wants to fuck, but he agrees to talk about what happened with Jack? Remember Jack? No, me neither.
Christian sits beside me, and leaning forward, puts his head in his hands.
Oh no. Is this too hard for him?
For goodness sake, Ana. You’re asking him to tell you what he k
nows about the guy who broke into your apartment. It’s not hard. It’s not like you’re asking him to invent technology that would allow him to flip open the top of his skull and project his thoughts about Jack Hyde in the form of a 3D holographic five act drama written in iambic pentameter.
