by Anna Roberts
Way to admit you only like other women when they fuck up in some way, Ana. They’re not a ‘threat’ to you that way, are they? You insecure little baby.
Apparently Prescott has left a voicemail for Christian with Taylor, which means that Christian is going to start screaming, kicking and demanding a fresh juicebox within the next couple of pages.
Prescott quite sensibly says that she is not comfortable with Ana being alone with the woman who tried to kill her two months ago, but Ana is determined to talk to Leila despite knowing that Prescott, as the security officer, is going to be the one facing off against her tantrum-prone mess of a husband and will also probably lose her job. I love that Ana is continually protesting that she’s not used to being rich when she’s already halfway to morphing into Daisy Buchanan.
Ana assistant cancels her next couple of meetings, because as we all know, if Ana is in danger of doing any kind of actual work while at work then she will spoil her Business Barbie outfit, and nobody wants that.
What the hell does Leila want? I don’t think she’s here to do me any harm. She didn’t in the past when she had the opportunity.
That’s because Christian and Taylor arrived before she actually shot you, dingbat. And then you ran across the street in tears and got really, really drunk because you were worried Christian might have lingering romantic feelings for the woman currently pointing a gun at his head. (That actually happened in Fifty Shades Darker. It was a magical time.)
Christian is going to go nuts...
‘Go’?
I type a quick e-mail, then pause, checking the time. I feel a momentary pang of regret. We’ve been getting along so well since Aspen.
They’ve gone over a week without having a blazing, histrionic, high-drama howling match. Oddly, in a book distinguished for its leaden pacing, this week has blown by in the space of a chapter. It’s almost as if, when they’re not hooting like angry gibbons at one another, they’re really boring people.
She goes to meet Leila, who is looking much better and not crazy. She’s accompanied by another young woman named Susi, who looks like her and who also looks like Ana, because Christian Grey liked to sexually degrade slender, dark-haired young women because they reminded him of his mother. But it’s okay, because he’s better now. (He’s so not.)
By this point the phone is ringing off the hook because Christian is chucking one of his infamous shitfits at the other end of it. Ana considerately tells Hannah to stall him, because I’m sure what Hannah wanted to do this morning was listen to the angry ravings of a foaming fucking psychopath.
It’s one thing to have a husband who should rightly be restrained at the end of a six foot brass rod lead every time he doesn’t get his way, but to inflict him on others is nothing short of inconsiderate.
I turn back to the two women sitting in front of me. They are both staring at me in awe. It’s uncomfortable.
Shut up, Ana. We know you love it.
Susi speaks. “I know this is all kinds of weird, but I wanted to meet you, too. The woman who captured Christian Grey.”
Pack it up, ladies. We can all go home now. Ana has won. She is the best woman in the whole world because she’s won all the prizes and there are no more left for the rest of us.
“We call ourselves the sub club.” She grins at me, her eyes shining with mirth.
Wait – there’s like a support group for Christian Grey’s exes? Like Christian Grey Anonymous? Actually I can kind of believe that.
Christian finally screams at enough people for Prescott to hand the phone over to Ana. As you can probably guess, Mr. Miffy is not amused.
“What do you mean don’t shout at you?” he shouts, louder this time. “I gave specific instructions which you have completely disregarded – again. Hell, Ana, I am fucking furious.”
“When you are calmer, we will talk about this.”
“Don’t you hang up on me,” he hisses.
“Goodbye, Christian.” I hang up and switch off Prescott’s phone.
Holy shit. I don’t have long with Leila.
Astonishingly, Ana has learned something. She has learned that if you hang up on Christian Grey he comes storming over to continue yelling at you in person whether he has to come from across town or from New York. Meanwhile I’m still puzzled as to how things work at Grey Inc or Grey Enterprises Holding or Grey Ltd or whatever the company is called in this book. Presumably they have to take account of the fact that their CEO might explode at any given time and then disappear for days on end in order to shout at his wife and then make it up to her with a drunken holiday in Aspen.
Leila explains that she’s feeling better and is very sorry about trying to kill Ana in book two. Aw, Leila – and I thought we were going to be friends.
Apparently Leila is here to see Christian, because he’s refused all her requests to see him.
I don’t want her anywhere near my husband. Why is she here? To assess the opposition?
Yes, because everyone wants to fuck Mr. Psycho. Everyone wants what you have, Ana. Hey, it’s almost like you’re beginning to think of your husband as property! Carry on like that and you’ll be a match made in heaven.
“Leila.” I flounder, exasperated. “It’s not up to me, it’s up to Christian. You’ll need to ask him. He doesn’t need my permission. He’s a grown man...most of the time.”
Said grown man is currently storming towards her office, fists clenched and nostrils aflare, braced and red-faced and about to bust out one of his special company crèche sized tantrums. Yeah. He’s a grown-up.
“Why is it so important for you to see him?” I ask gently.
“To thank him. I’d be rotting in a stinking prison psychiatric facility if it wasn’t for him. I know that.”
Leila, ladies and gentlemen. She wants to say thank you. One of the only characters in this book who has displayed anything approaching decent manners.
“And for art school. I can’t thank him enough for that.”
I knew it! Christian is funding her classes. I remain expressionless, tentatively exploring my feelings for this woman now that she’s confirmed my suspicions about Christian’s generosity. To my surprise I feel no ill will toward her.
Congratulations, Ana. You met a minimum standard of good behaviour. You want a fucking pat on the head and a biscuit or something?
“What are your plans, while you’re here?”
“Pick up my belongings from Susi, return to Hamden. Continue painting and learning. Mr. Grey already has a couple of my paintings.”
What the hell! My stomach plunges into the basement once more. Are they hanging in my living room? I bridle at the thought.
Ah, there’s the Ana we all know and loathe. It’s a painting, Ana. What do you think is going to happen? Is it going to ooze some kind of homewrecker gas like the bathroom fittings Gia picked out for your house in Aspen?
And don’t you just love how Leila – the psychotic ex-girlfriend – has undergone more character development in her two or three brief appearances in these books than the two leads have in the entire series? She recovered from a psychotic break after the death of her boyfriend. She picked up the threads of her life. She got a hobby.
Unfortunately she didn’t get over Christian Grey, because it’s not worth Ana’s having him if other women don’t want him.
Ana sits back and wallows in the knowledge that Leila still loves Christian, because Ana is gross.
Swallowing hard, I clutch the moral high ground. “I know. He’s very easy to love,” I whisper.
He’s not. I’m beginning to look at his mother’s ‘accidental’ overdose in a whole new light. I know I’d want to kill myself if I’d given birth to Damien Thorne’s evil twin.
My subconscious rolls her eyes at me in despair and goes back to reading her dog-eared copy of Jane Eyre.
Maybe this explains why Ana manages to get Thomas Hardy and Jane Austen so staggeringly, hilariously wrong – the whole time she was at college she didn’t do any r
eading; the stupid cartoon person in her malfunctioning head was doing all the reading.
At this point Mr. ‘Easy To Love’ comes stomping into the room in the pyroclastic throes of a Vesuvian-sized tantrum. Aw, schnookums.
The menacing cool glint in his eyes reveals the truth – he’s emanating rage, though he hides it well. In his grey suit, with his dark tie loosened and the top button of his white shirt undone, he looks at once businesslike and casual...and hot.
Yes, Ana. We get it. You won the prize. The hottest man in the world is in love with you. Mousy little innocent you. (He’s a fucking stone cold psychopath but we won’t mention that because if we love him enough he’ll get better, right?)
The adorable Christian immediately fires Prescott and rounds on Leila, who ‘peeks up at him through long lashes, her eyes wide, her face ashen, her rosy glow gone.’
He’s so cute when he’s bullying vulnerable women.
“Leila, if you come anywhere near my wife again, I will cut off all support. Doctors, art-school, medical insurance – all of it – gone. Do you understand?”
“Christian - ” I try again, but he silences me with a chilling look. Why is he being so unreasonable?
Because he’s an enormous piece of shit. He’s always been a piece of shit. He will probably always be a piece of shit. You were just too cock-struck to notice.
Leila says she just wanted to know if he was okay.
“I’m fine. There, question answered. Now Taylor will run you to Sea-Tac so you can go back to the East Coast. And if you take one step west of the Mississippi, it’s all gone. Understand?”
Holy fuck...Christian! I gape at him. What the fuck is eating him?
Necrotizing fasciitis, hopefully. (Whatever you do, do not Google Image search this condition.)
Ana is still standing around baffled that her husband has turned into a bellowing, bullying, aggressive asshole, because he was such a charmer before. It’s been said, but it’s worth saying again – Ana is not that bright.
Then Leila has the last word.
“This is the Christian Grey I know,” she says, her tone sad and wistful. Christian frowns at her, while all the breath evaporates from my lungs. I can’t breathe. Was Christian like this with her all the time? Was he like this with me, at first?
He’s like this with you now, you forty watt moron. It’s almost like you were so dazzled with diamonds, dick and helicopters that you failed to realise your husband is the biggest asshole since that repulsive cabaret turn in The Naked Lunch.
Anyway, Leila goes out and Ana is left to deal with Captain Tantrum (the World’s Most Annoying Superhero) and intercedes on behalf of long suffering Prescott, who probably doesn’t want this job back anyway. Ana kind of tells her husband off for being awful, but not really.
“You. Why were you so callous toward her?”
He sighs and shifts, stepping toward me and perching on the table.
“Anastasia,” he says, as if to a child, “you don’t understand. Leila, Susannah – all of them – they were a pleasant, diverting pastime. But that’s all. You are the centre of my universe.”
Until he gets bored, at least. Don’t you just love it? He basically admits that women are objects to him but Ana is still stupid enough to believe that she’s different and special. Protip, cupcake – you’re so not.
Christian says what Leila did in book two was ‘unforgivable’, even though she was in the middle of a major psychotic episode and not in control of all her faculties at the time. Most courts would plead diminished responsibility, but not Christian Grey.
“She didn’t hurt me. She loves you, too.”
“I don’t give a fuck.”
I gape at him, shocked. And I’m shocked that he still has the capacity to shock me.
I’m just shocked the above made it past a line editor. Yikes.
‘This is the Christian Grey I know.’ Leila’s words rattle around my head. His reaction to her was so cold, so at odds with the man I’ve come to know and love.
Ana reassures herself that Christian does love Leila in some capacity, because he can’t be that cold and awful (he can) and says he must care because he paid for her therapy. Admittedly that was uncharacteristically kind of him, or maybe he just felt responsible since it was he was the one who drove her nuts in the first place.
Suddenly it’s my lifetime ambition to make him realise this. It’s painstakingly obvious that he cares. Why does he deny it? It’s like his feelings for his birth mother...
...here we go. Tragic PastTM incoming. Also ‘painstakingly’? Really? Is it because I’ve not picked up the book for a couple of days or is the writing even worse than usual in this chapter?
...oh shit – of course. His feelings for Leila and his other submissives are tangled up with his feelings for his mother. ‘I like to whip little brown-haired girls like you because you look like the crack whore.’ No wonder he’s so mad. Paging Dr. Flynn, please. How can he not see this?
Who, Christian or Dr. Flynn? Because Dr. Flynn is the world’s worst psychiatrist. Seriously. This guy sucks worse than the woman on Dexter who more or less told Deb to act on her inappropriate sexual feelings for her brother.
My heart swells for him momentarily. My lost boy...
Oh here we go again. Why don’t you just fly off to NeverNever Land and live up a fucking tree, Wendy? I’ve had it up to here with these lost boys – let me tell you. I should draw up a bingo card.
Why is it so hard for him to get back in touch with the humanity, the compassion, he showed Leila when she had her breakdown?
If you’ve read my recaps of Fifty Shades Darker you’ll know that this was the part where Christian gave Leila a bath and Ana, soul of compassion that she is, threw a lengthy jealous squealing fit and went and got drunk. Because apparently no man can resist a gun-wielding ex-girlfriend when she’s having a psychotic break.
I have to admit it was my favourite part of the entire book. Especially the bit where he went catatonic. Jesus, that was fucking funny.
Anyway, back to the book...
“Christian.” My voice is weary. “I’m tired of having the same argument with you.”
You’re tired? You’re fucking tired? How the fuck do you think I feel? You’re the most boring people in human history, and I say that as a woman who sat through all two and a half unnecessary hours of Eat, Pray, Love and lived to tell the tale. If boredom was an Olympic event then you droning ninnies would be flying on down to Rio. People would talk in hushed tones of wonder about just how many spectators blew their brains out during the legendary Christian Grey/Ana Steele Bore Off of 2016.
I’m sorry, but the Kindle bar thingy says I am only 59% done with this book. How can there be more? How is this even possible? Why won’t it end?
“You know,” I elucidate. “I do something you don’t like, and you think of some way to get back at me...”
Huh. An elucidate. This is always the kind of thing I use as an example of ridiculous dialogue tags you should always steer clear of, but here’s one in its natural habit.
Anyway, she mentions ‘kinky fuckery’ and he wants to get busy in the boardroom. Ana’s stupid ‘subconscious’ pipes up to point out that he distracts her with sex all the time and she whines that he’s just so good at it. He’s not. I don’t think he can reasonably be described as a master of distraction when his mark is so dumb she could be diverted by wiggling a laser pointer at the wall.
There’s some more flirting and foreplay but I’m just too bored to recap it. Then they go home and have some sex – yawn.
Then there’s some more e-mail, and then Ana gets a phone call saying her dad was in a car crash. There the chapter ends.
Chapter Seventeen – Sucking, Expelling, Sucking, Expelling
Ana is on the phone with José Rodriguez Snr, José’s dad. He used to be Billy Black from Twilight, just like Ray used to be Charlie ‘Disposable Dad’ Swan. To avoid confusion we will now be calling them Bosé and Rarlie – got that
?
I should be grateful that something is finally happening, after four chapters composed entirely of filler. The plot was last seen somewhere in chapter nine and if there are no further sightings in the next couple of chapters then I’m afraid we’ll have to begin the sad, inevitable paperwork to have it declared extinct in the wild.
As it is, I’m kind of jealous of Rarlie, who is currently in a coma.
A dark dread seizes me by the throat and overwhelms me. Ray. No. No. I take a deep steadying breath, pick up the phone and call Roach. He answers on the second ring.
