by Anna Roberts
“His dad died in a brawl in a bar. His mother drank herself into oblivion. He was in and out of foster homes as a kid...in and out of trouble, too. Mainly boosting cars. Spent time in juvie. His mom got back on track through some outreach program and Hyde turned himself around. Won a scholarship to Princeton.”
Yeah. Why would a man like that have a grudge against the chippy little wet-behind-the-ears princess who threatened his job when her billionaire boyfriend bought the company where he worked?
And why couldn’t this book be about Jack?
The chapter ends with a further question when the flight attendant steps out of the galley.
“May I offer anyone coffee?” she asks.
I don’t know. Does it come with a cyanide chaser?
Chapter Thirteen - Twilight In Aspen
They get off the private plane (Christian Grey’s carbon footprint must be dinosaur sized) and Christian stops to praise the pilot for a good landing. Because he can fly planes. Did he mention that? And did he also mention he had a helicopter?
“It’s all about the density altitude, sir.” Stephan smiles back. “Beighley here is good at math.”
Christian nods at Stephan’s first officer. “You nailed it, Beighley. Smooth landing.”
“Thank you, sir.” She grins smugly.
Because it’s not a Fifty Shades novel without our popped haemorrhoid of a heroine throwing shade at some woman who’s better at things than she is.
There’s a mini-van. Are you excited? I am. Absolutely nothing is going to happen in these next couple of chapters. At one point I was thinking of not recapping them at all and posting pictures of cats instead, but felt that I would not be doing justice to exactly how boring these books are.
Just for a frame of reference, I’ve sat through workplace safety seminars (Do not set fire to your hair/lick the light-switches/stand open mouthed in front of the air-con unit which may well be carrying Legionnaire’s Disease) more interesting than Fifty Shades Freed.
Brace yourself. It’s about to get...dull.
“Want to make out in the back of the van?” Christian murmurs to me, a mischievous gleam in his eyes.
I giggle. Who is this man, and what has he done with Mr. Unbelievably Angry of the last couple of days.
Likeliest explanation is that, following the previous noche triste, even the author is now bored of crying, psychobabble, repetitive sex and moody three-in-the-morning piano playing.
And for some unfathomable reason I feel shy with him today. Why? Last night? Being with company? I can’t put my finger on it.
I can. Bored author is bored. Time for some unaccountable mood-swings and a total change of tone!
Ana describes the scenery, remarkably without using the words ‘stunning’, ‘panoramic’ or ‘vista’ and then has another one of her ‘Oh no, I appear to be incredibly rich,’ wobbles. Because she hasn’t had one of those since about chapter four and we don’t want her to look like she’s getting used to it.
And from deep within my psyche, the familiar unease that’s always present when I try to wrap my head around Christian’s wealth looms and taunts me, making me feel guilty. What have I done to deserve this lifestyle? I’ve done nothing, nothing except fall in love.
Actually you didn’t even do that, since you’ve pretty much admitted that you love him in spite of everything about him and the only time he ever gets you consistently starry-eyed is when you imagine his Tragic Past as a Victorian orphan. But by all means carry on.
“I’m hoping my husband will teach me how to ski.” I glance up at my man.
“Don’t bet on it,” Christian mutters.
“I won’t be that bad!”
“You might break your neck.” His grin gone.
Oh. I don’t want to argue and sour his good mood, so I change the subject.
Yeah, about that good mood. God, these books are depressing.
...Kate is quiet, and I wonder if she’s brooding about Jack Hyde or something else...
...the hot Mexican transvestite she loved and lost when his career as a romance novelist took off...oh no, wait. That’s my version. (FYI, in my head the role of Jesús is played by Diego Luna, who looks a lot like he did in Y Tu Mama Tambien. You’re welcome.)
...then I remember. Aspen...Christian’s house here was redesigned by Gia Matteo and rebuilt by Elliot. I wonder if that’s what’s preoccupying Kate. I can’t ask her in front of Elliot, given his history with Gia.
When even your internal monologue is failing the Bechdel Test, you know you’ve got problems.
Ana gets a look at Aspen and decides she quite likes it.
“Why did you choose Aspen?” I ask him.
“What?” He regards me quizzically.
“To buy a place.”
Gstaad is so Eurotrash these days, darling. Because he can, you dingbat.
...[he] finally pulls up outside the impressive house. Double fronted with high pitched roofs and built of dark wood and the same mixed stone as the gateway. It’s stunning...
E.L., I’ve a good mind to smack you on the nose with a rolled up newspaper. Sentence fragments and travel brochure copy do not a description make.
“Come. See,” he says, an excited, though anxious, gleam in his eyes as if he’s about to show me his science project or something.
Oh God. There’s a thought I could have gone without. Christian Grey’s science project. What do sociopaths submit to the Science Fair? Hold me. I’m frightened.
By the way, in case you weren’t clear on who the characters were back when this was a Twilight fanfic, Ethan (Kate’s brother) is Jasper Cullen, the Confederate vampire of Civil War vintage, whose opinions on black people mysteriously never made it into the books. Mia (Christian’s sister) is the loathsomely perky Alice, the plastic fashionista whose answer to everything is ‘Clothes!’, Kate is Rosalie, the blonde vampire who doesn’t like Bella until Bella gets knocked up with a creepy CGI baby and Elliot is Emmett, the big dumb fratboy vampire who is big and dumb.
Obviously, since Stephenie Meyer is a master of characterisation, their personalities should be instantly recognisable.
Mia grabs Ethan’s hand and drags him farther into the house. Christian narrows his eyes at their departing figures, his mouth thinning. He shakes his head, then turns to me.
And Christian Grey is Edward Cullen, the stalky, paternalistic buzzkill vampire, enemy of endangered species, independent choices and first and foremost all possible sources and forms of fun. But you knew that, right?
Then Ana describes the house a bit in terms of ‘all pale marble’ and ‘all black cupboards’ and ‘all zebra-skin with custom silver-plated dildos bolted to the wall’. Okay, maybe not the last, but I’m already bored here. There’s a huge plasma screen TV, which is kind of weird since Christian Grey (in his Twilight appointed role as Enemy of Fun) thinks all TV is ‘drivel’. I’m guessing he doesn’t have Netflix.
Brain surgeon Ana once again states the obvious.
“You’re very rich.”
“Yes.”
“Sometimes, it just takes me by surprise how wealthy you are.”
And would she still be into him if he wasn’t filthy, stinking, dirty rich? This is the question. A far better plotline for these books would be if Christian’s company went tits up (largely because every time he’s needed at the office he fucks off to Aspen) and little Miss Ever-So-’Umble here was forced to face her feelings when life with Christian Grey didn’t come with helicopter rides, private jets or luxury yachts. And all that was left was the whining. The endless, senseless, pointless fucking whining.
Ana talks about Gia and Christian asks why they’re talking about Gia. Ana says it’s because Gia remodelled this place and she once had a fling with Elliot. Because Ana thinks Kate is currently staring into space, thinking about how Gia Matteo picked out that particular bathroom fitting with her whore-eyes and her whore-brain and so that chrome soap dish or whatever has become a kind of whore-conduit leaking Gia’s
whoreness into the house, where it will linger and poison Kate’s relationship with Elliot, because that’s what whores do.
That or Ana is a fucking lunatic who went off on an Italian architect who once touched her husband on the arm.
Christian reveals that Elliot has fucked most of Seattle - ‘mainly women’ - , and once again I wish this book was about one of the minor characters.
Christian then goes on to reveal that Elliot has no idea about his own past – the fifteen women he kept as sex slaves before Ana and the glamorous child molester who seduced him when he was fifteen years old. “...he really has no idea about my past. I told you, my family assumed I was gay. Celibate, but gay.”
So Christian Grey doesn’t talk to his family. And in the last book it was established that he has no friends. This is not a man you want to date twice, let alone marry.
She says she doesn’t understand why he has this house and he says it’s probably because he was subconsciously waiting for her to come along so that he’d have someone to share it with. And if you believe that, you’ll believe anything. Luckily for him this is Ana we’re talking about.
“Christian, you are the state lottery, the cure for cancer, and the three wishes from Aladdin’s lamp all rolled into one.”
To quote the great Mancunian swear-poet John Cooper Clarke – ‘you make life a fairytale. Grim.’
“You were a very eligible bachelor. And I don’t mean all this.” I wave a hand dismissively at our plush surroundings.
That’s a nice thing to be able to dismiss, isn’t it?
“I mean in here.” I place my hand over his heart, and his eyes widen. My confident, sexy husband has gone, and I’m facing my lost boy.
Ana, you are so, so creepy.
Anyway, absolutely nothing has happened in this chapter and so it’s time to go shopping.
“Let’s split up.” Mia claps her hands. “Girls, shopping – boys, outdoor boring stuff.”
My note on this reads ‘Fuck off Alice.’ I think it says it all.
I smile wryly at Kate and Mia. Christian smirks. He knows I hate shopping.
Yes, because you’re not like all those other girls who are shallow and who like clothes and shoes and handbags, are you Ana? Are any boys watching? Do they look impressed?
She decides that Christian needs ‘boy time’, whatever that is. Perhaps spending time in the company of other males who are not on his payroll, since as I will never get sick of reminding people – he has no friends.
...Mia hauls me into a designer boutique that’s all pink silk and faux-French distressed furniture.
‘All something something and something’ is rapidly rising up there with ‘stunning’, and ‘breathtaking’ as descriptions that make me want to threaten you with the ironing spray. You can hiss at me all you want, but the water will keep coming until you learn.
They buy clothes. At this point the author is so mind-numbingly bored that she’s listing the tracks on the Motown compilation she’s listening to. Apparently they’re going clubbing tonight. Good thing they’re not in Alaska because with people this charming my immediate assumption would be that baby seals are involved.
Rolling my eyes, I reflect once more on how lucky I am to have Caroline Acton, my own personal shopper.
Caroline Acton. Remember Caroline Acton? You know Caroline. She appears in book...er...wait a second. Oh wait. She doesn’t actually appear in any of the books at all. So why does she need a name? It’s like Noah Logan – he appeared in the elevator and was given a full name in order for the moronic main characters to promptly forget it.
Ana spots Gia in the street, a sighting that ramps her already demented anxiety up to full on tin-foil hat levels. Perhaps it’s significant that she then drops eight hundred and fifty dollars on a silver dress that sounds like it looks like it was made from Bacofoil. Yes, that’s right, Ana – it will keep out the harmful Whore-Rays. Better if you wear it on your head though. Be sure to wear it on your head.
Then she buys a pair of thousand dollar shoes and mimps a bit about not being used to having money. Knock it off, Ana – nobody’s buying this shit any more.
There’s a hint that Kate and Elliot may have been having problems due to not only the Whore-miasma building up in the house from the bathroom fittings but the actual hellish whore presence of Gia ‘Whore Queen of Whorelandia’ Matteo in Aspen. But then they go back to the house and have daiquiris, because nobody in these books has ever had a problem that drinking can’t solve.
Kate has fallen in love with Elliot, but you knew that was likely, right?
Ana goes to look for firewood and finds Elliot in the garage. She eyes up a motorcycle because she used to be Bella from Twilight. Then Christian comes back from fishing, wearing the serial killer coveralls she sold him when she worked at Claytons, back in those romantic days when they were strangers to one another and mere stalker and prey. Also he was fishing. Totally fishing. Not killing people up in the woods or anything.
Then they go and have a bath together because we are playing dolls now. Then Ana goes and gets dressed in her new dress that she bought and the author all but admits it; – "Kate has gone all out and played Barbie with me this evening..."
Then she e-mails Christian from like two rooms away, because this chapter needs even more mindless filler.
He approves of her dress and sticks his fingers up her sniz, as usual.
“This is mine,” he murmurs in my ear. Closing his eyes, he moves his finger slowly in and out of me. “I don’t want anyone else to see this.”
I wonder what he thinks her gynecologist does. Operates blindfold? And what’s going to happen when she gets pregnant and gives birth? Is he going to punch everyone in the delivery room?
They go out to eat. It is boring.
Christian seems at ease. He’s been talking animatedly with Ethan...They’re talking about psychology, mainly. Ironically, Christian sounds the more knowledgeable. I snort softly as I half listen to their conversation, sadly acknowledging that his expertise is the result of his experience with so many shrinks.
Interestingly, research in the last ten or so years has led many psychiatric professionals to the conclusion that there is one condition where the ‘talking cure’ may in fact do more harm than good; psychopathy. If Christian Grey were real he’d tick more than enough boxes on the Hare Checklist to fit this diagnosis.
And then Elliot proposes to Kate and the chapter ends.
Chapter Fourteen - Plot? What Plot?
The attention of the entire restaurant is trained on Kate and Elliot, waiting with bated breath as one.
I love how she’s determined to tell me that everyone is interested in these aimless shitheads. I lost interest in whether they lived or died sometime around chapter two of book one, although there was a moment in book two when I thought he might at least have been seriously injured in a helicopter crash. That was a fun five pages.
Kate says yes and oh happy happy joy here are another couple of idiots who get engaged after three months. Everyone in the restaurant applauds like that bit in Titanic when Jack kisses Rose on the grand staircase and their love is so pure and so perfect and oh no, wait – he’s currently on his way down to the bottom of the North Atlantic, even colder and sadder than a Findus Crispy Pancake.
There are about two more pages of pointless applause and we get to see the ring (‘exquisite’ – that’s going on the list, E.L. No! Bad!) and Christian orders Cristal – 2002, if you have it please.
We all sip, well, I glug...
The first step is admitting you have a problem, Ana.
...Hmm, Cristal tastes so good, and I’m reminded of the first time I drank it at Christian’s club and later, our eventful elevator journey to the first floor.
Did you like that sentence? Good. Because you’re about to have it again in dialogue form.
Christian frowns at me. “What are you thinking about?”
“The first time I drank this champagne.”
&nb
sp; His frown becomes more quizzical.
“We were at your club,” I prompt.
He grins. “Oh yes. I remember.” He winks at me.
See? Wasn’t that good? Even better than the first time.
“Oh, make it a Christmas wedding. That would be so romantic, and you’d have no trouble remembering your anniversary.” Mia claps her hands.
I hate Mia, by the way. Every time she appears she’s clapping her hands like she’s trying to believe in fucking fairies and gabbing inanely about parties and clothes. I hated her when she was Alice Cullen and I hate her now that she’s Mia Grey.
