by Anna Roberts
Zax is the most exclusive nightclub in Aspen – or so says Mia...I glance at my watch – eleven thirty in the evening, and I’m feeling fuzzy. The two glasses of champagne and several glasses of Pouilly-Fumé during our meal are starting to have an effect...
If you tried to match Ana drink for drink while reading these books, you’d probably end up in a coma. Just saying.
They go into a nightclub. It’s very boring.
There is a blonde girl in satin hot pants and Ana is already spitting at her for being blonde, pretty and within five feet of her husband. Because whores. Probably.
“Show me your ring.” I raise my voice over the music.
Well. That took a turn for the outré.
The ring is exquisite [No! Bad!], a single solitaire in a fine elaborate claw with tiny diamonds on either side. It has a retro Victorian look to it.
Oh. That ring. Boo, you whore.
Also when you’re talking about jewellery a solitaire means ‘single’. Do you know anything or were you grown in some kind of vat?
Then there are two pages devoted solely to the ordering of drinks. Ana ‘I’ve never been drunk before’ orders more champagne. Hic.
“Bottle of Cristal, three Peronis, and a bottle of iced mineral water, six glasses,” he says in his usual, authoritative, no-nonsense manner.
It’s kinda hot.
It’s kinda rude. Do you think we could get a please in there, Mister? I wonder how many waiters have dipped their dicks in drinks they then served to Christian Grey? It’s happy little thoughts like this that get me through these books.
Miss Hot Pants Number Two gives him a gracious smile, but he’s spared the fluttering of eyelashes, though her cheeks redden a little.
I shake my head in resignation. He’s mine, girlfriend.
And you, girlfriend, are more than fucking welcome to him. Incidentally don’t you just love how the wait-staff – who actually appear in this book – are referred to as Miss Hot Pants Numbers One and Two, while Caroline ‘Not Appearing In This Series’ Acton gets a whole name?
“Mrs. Grey, are you jealous?”
“Not in the slightest.” I pout at him. And I realize in that moment that I am beginning to tolerate women ogling my husband. Almost. Christian clasps my hand and kisses my knuckles.
“You have nothing to be jealous of, Mrs. Grey,” he murmurs...
Huh. For once I agree with Christian Grey – at least with regard to the husband thing. Some diamonds and a helicopter might be nice though.
He makes her drink some water because she’s had, “Three glasses of white wine at dinner and two of champagne, after a strawberry daiquiri and two glasses of Frascati at lunchtime.”
You know it’s true love when you’ve gone from near teetotal to functional alcoholism in the space of less than months.
Ethan and Mia are back.
“Ethan’s had enough, for now. Come on, girls. Let’s hit the floor. Strike a pose, throw some shapes, work off the calories from the chocolate mousse.”
Fuck off Mia.
Ana gets up and insists she’s not drunk; it’s just that her heels are very high. (Remind me to try that one sometime) Then they get on the dance floor and ‘throw some shapes’ (An expression I haven’t heard in the wild since about 1997) and Ana thinks about dancing in the way that only Ana can.
Why did I spend the first twenty years of my life not doing this? I chose reading over dancing. Jane Austen didn’t have great music to move to...
Yep, Austenistas – that just happened. Ana somehow missed the part where Jane Austen was not only keen on music and dancing but also the way her entire body of work includes a large number of...well...dances. It’s not like her most famous novel opens with an invitation to a dance or anything.
I don’t know what Ana was reading, but it sure as fuck wasn’t anything by Jane Austen. And it definitely wasn’t Tess Of The D’Urbervilles either.
Then some guy grabs Ana on the dance floor and she slaps him across the face. Then Christian gets up on the dance floor and punches him. Because that’s what men do when they love you.
I put my arms around Christian’s neck until he finally makes eye contact, his eyes still blazing – primal and feral. A glimpse of a brawling adolescent. Holy shit.
Hey Ana, why don’t you paste that in your creepy mental scrapbook next to your portrait of starving little Victorian orphan Christian? You can think about it the next time he’s fucking you.
...deep down I know why I hit him. It’s because I instinctively knew how Christian would react to seeing some stranger pawing me. I knew he’d lose his precious self-control.
Oh yeah. Because that’s healthy. ‘My husband treats me like property. He’s so dreamy.’
And the thought that some stupid nobody could derail my husband, my love, well, it makes me mad. Really mad.
I’d be more concerned that my husband has a hair-trigger temper and is capable of beating people to a bloody pulp whenever someone else touches things or people he considers to be ‘his’, but then I wouldn’t marry a man like Christian Grey. The only legal agreements I would enter into with men like Christian Grey would be restraining orders. Because he’s a fucking psycho.
Also don’t you just love that? The person who trips his switch is ‘nobody’. Not a person he was fully prepared to put in the hospital. Despite her protestations, Ana is fitting nicely into the cold, glittery world of the super-rich and the sociopathic.
Then they dance all sexy because that is Ana’s job now – to talk him down when he’s angry. Oh, this book makes me uncomfortable.
“What if there had been press here?” I ask...
... “I have expensive lawyers,” he says coolly, all at once arrogance personified.
I frown at him. “But you’re not above the law, Christian. I did have the situation under control.”
His eyes frost. “No one touches what’s mine,” he says with chilling finality, as if I’m missing the obvious.
Actually he is above the law. Everyone in these books behaves as though the law doesn’t apply to the likes of them, because they’re in love/prettier than average/because they smell good/only trying to look out for one another/delete as applicable. Lest we forget, he kidnapped Ana in chapter four of the first book and has been merrily racking up felonies – both major and minor – since then.
I’m still processing how I feel about Christian’s behaviour. At the time I was worried that it could have been worse.
Yeah – you see? That right there is a problem. You married an angry, grabby toddler. Unfortunately he’s over six foot tall and mysteriously quite muscular. (I say mysteriously because we never see him bench-press any more than we see him at work.)
Then we go home and Christian takes off her make-up and shoes for her because she is - in the words of Morbo the Annihilator - titty much protally fitshaced.
“You were so mad,” I murmur.
“Yes. I was.”
“At me?”
“No. Not at you.” He kisses my shoulder. “For once.”
I smile. Not mad at me. This is progress.
This is not a thing anyone in a happy relationship should ever be thinking about their spouse.
Then it’s time for the chapter to end and little Miss Sozzled to fall asleep.
And then Christian putting me to bed. Who would have thought? I grin widely, the word ‘progress’ running around my brain as I drift.
Progress = he assaulted someone in a nightclub and still thinks I’m property, but at least he’s not angry with me this time! Yay!
Chapter Fifteen - Fifty Shades of Brown
Oh look, it's a chapter that starts with Ana waking up. (help. me.)
I linger on the edge of consciousness, aware that if I wake fully I’ll wake him, too, and he doesn’t sleep enough.
Yeah. That’ll be the ‘nightmares’ he keeps having when he thinks you’re not paying enough attention to him.
Oh my...he’s tense, lying on top of me, a
nd his growing erection is digging tantalizingly into my soft, willing flesh, distracting me. What’s this about? Brawling? Fantasy? Will he hurt me? My inner goddess shakes her head – Never.
Ana, your inner goddess is an idiot. Don’t listen to her. Also, don’t you find it interesting that in 607,000 words of relentless, boring pornography nobody ever uses the word ‘cock’? Or dick. Or prick, putz, schlong, dong, spam-javelin, wang, willy, spunk-cannon or love truncheon.
Blah blah blah, humping. Well, kind of. They’re not actually getting freaky. They’re just rolling around. She gets on top and ‘calls the shots’ as they put it. Although not so much that she touches herself or tells him to get down and eat her damn box for once, and not as a preamble for another mawkish bump and grind thank you very much. Because that would be slutty, and Ana is a lady.
Ana brings up Mrs. Robinson, because while she usually never bothers with people she hates, she is also a sick little puppy who needs to be constantly reassured that Christian likes her better than the nice lady who molested him when he was fifteen.
He says it was ‘different’ with Mrs. Robinson.
“I thought you liked it.”
“I did. At the time.”
“Not now?”
He gazes at me, eyes wide, then slowly shakes his head.
It doesn’t matter if he ‘liked it’. It was still statutory rape and he was still a child. But Ana doesn’t really give a shit because she’s ‘won’, over Mrs. Robinson the glamorous child molester. He likes her best and he’s added another layer of trauma to his beautiful, beautiful pain.
I’m overwhelmed by the feelings that swamp me. My lost boy. I launch myself at him and kiss his face, his throat, his chest, his little round scars.
Have I spent too much time in the company of these dreadful people or does Ana come across like the kind of person who might one day bust out with a terrifying case of Munchausen’s-by-proxy? It’s like she’s addicted to other people’s misery and distress and to how good she can make herself feel by soothing them.
Then there’s several pages of further dickery too pointless to record and then at the end of it Kate throws herself into Ana’s arms and exclaims how wonderful it will be when they becomes sisters-in-law. In normal circumstances this would be touching, but these are the Greys we’re talking about. This whole Aspen jamboree was basically Christian telling her she could spend time with her friends – AKA his family. And now Kate’s going to be part of his family too! Hey Ana, you have no need for friends now! All your friends are Family.
And that’s not creepy and cultlike at all.
They get back from Aspen. Ana attempts to remind us of the plot, such as it is.
Tomorrow we go back to reality – back to work, the paparazzi, and to Jack in custody but with the possibility that he has an accomplice. Hmm...Christian was vague about that. Does he know? And if he did know, would he tell me?
More to the point, does anyone even care any more? We’ve had two whole chapters of pointless crying followed by two more chapters of getting drunk, thumping people and trying on clothes.
It’s been a revelation to see him out of his normal environment, relaxed and happy with his family.
And punching people in nightclubs.
I wonder vaguely if it’s because we’re here in this apartment with all its memories and associations that he gets wound up.
Could be. Or he’s just a violent psycho. That’s always an option, given the evidence.
Ana’s weird little mind returns to the house she’s renovating and the subject of Gia. Want to know what Gia was doing in Aspen? Nothing.
Turns out it was nothing but coincidence.
Well, I’m glad that’s settled then. Red herrings – how not to do them. By the way, whatever happened to that gun in the desk drawer about four chapters back? Remember that?
I look out at the night sky. I will miss this view. This panoramic vista...
I sure as hell won’t miss you trying to describe it. Panorama, vista and view all mean more or less the same damn thing, you nitwit. Panorama comes from a Greek root, vista from a Latin and view comes to us from Middle English via Norman French. It's not like this is some kind of arcane etymology you need an English degree to understand. A dictionary would do, and you know Ana has one of those. It's probably almost as thoroughly abused as her pet thesaurus.
Maybe that’s Christian’s problem – he’s been too isolated from real life for too long, thanks to his self-imposed exile. Yet with his family around him, he is less controlling, less anxious – freer, happier.
And more violent. Let’s not forget that part.
Holy crap! Maybe that’s the answer. Maybe he needs his own family.
Yes, because what this relationship really, really needs is another desperately needy, uncommunicative person who keeps everyone up all night.
“I’m not looking forward to going back to reality,” I murmur.
Sorry? Were you ever there?
“No?”
I shake my head and caress his lovely face. “I had a wonderful weekend. Thank you.”
He smiles softly. “You’re my reality, Ana,” he murmurs and kisses me.
Healthy talk, coming from the man with no friends. Also Ana should take this to its illogical conclusion and go to work the next day in a scuba mask and a tutu – if you’re going to become someone’s entire reality you should at least have the common courtesy to make it interesting for them.
Like I say, I’m old-fashioned.
Christian then tells Ana what she’s been waiting to hear since book one – that her magical love has cured him of his need for crap bondage. Because people are into kink because they’re broken and damaged. Not because it’s fun or anything.
Then several days fly by in a flurry of really boring e-mails. Apparently they had to go to some fancy dinner and he stuck the ben-wa balls up her twat again. Because we really needed to know that. And Ana gets all damp in the pants department. Again.
All the muscles in my belly clench. Hmm...I wonder what he’ll dream up.
With the vague anatomical descriptions in these books, you’d be forgiven for thinking that Ana is not sexually aroused at all but is actually suffering from a case of Irritable Bowel Syndrome so vicious and unrelenting that it deserves to be the subject of a medical case study.
E-mail, e-mail, e-mail. The dates are moving along now because work is not interesting and the author is bored. Jack has apparently been denied bail and has been charged with attempted kidnapping and arson.
Ana moans a bit about Prescott, the female bodyguard she doesn’t like. Christian says he’ll fire her, Ana says not to – she’s not that bad.
Then Hannah, Ana’s assistant (If your main character is called Ana then maybe name her secretary something other than Hannah?) knocks on the door and tells Ana that there’s a Leila Williams here to see her.
Remember good old Leila? The bugfuck crazy lady who attempted to kill Ana in Fifty Shades Darker? Ah, good times.
Leila? Fuck. What does she want?
Hopefully to finish the job.
Chapter Sixteen - Careless People
Leila is in reception along with another young woman. Prescott tells Ana that Leila is on her list of ‘proscribed visitors’ and Ana is astonished to discover that such a list even exists. Because Christian Grey has never before showed the slightest interest in controlling Ana.
“Is [Leila] dangerous?”
Well, I don’t know, Ana. Granted she was in the throes of a severe psychotic break the last time you saw her and was probably not that responsible for her actions. On the other hand that was only two months ago and she did have a gun pointed at you. Personally I’d be slightly cagey, just in case Leila had skipped her meds and decided to pick up where you left off, but then I have more than four functioning braincells.
Prescott has dropped the ball.
“I was on a restroom break. She came in, spoke directly to Claire, and Claire called Hannah.”
“Oh. I see.” I realise that even Prescott has to pee, and I laugh. “Oh dear.”
“Yes ma’am.” Prescott gives me an embarrassed grin, and it’s the first time I’ve seen a chink in her armour. She has a lovely smile.
