by Anna Roberts
There’s a tiny little blip in my belly. Tiny. Wow. I forget my discomfort as I stare dumbfounded at the blip...I am too stunned to say anything. The little blip is a baby. A real honest to goodness baby. Christian’s baby. My baby. Holy cow. A baby.
This kid is so doomed.
“Congratulations, Mrs. Grey,” she says as I sit up. “We need to make another appointment. I suggest in four weeks’ time. Then we can ascertain the exact age of your baby and set a likely due date.”
Hang on a fucking fancy minute, Doc. Let’s not start talking due dates before ascertaining that your patient wants to be pregnant. She could, for instance, be in an abusive relationship, or be a regular drug or alcohol abuser. She might have mental health issues. Actually, she kind of ticks all three of those boxes. Don’t you think she might need some kind of support network here?
Instead she gets a prescription for folic acid and a leaflet of dos and don’ts.
That must be an interesting leaflet, mustn’t it?
Do: Take your pre-natal vitamins, keep in touch with your primary health-care provider, seek medical attention in case of bleeding, swollen ankles, or changes in vision.
Don’t: Bungee jump, enter drinking contests, smoke, bare-knuckle box, drive recklessly, trip balls, swallow raw eggs, eat your own weight in brie or spend the entire forty weeks on the business end of a giant bong.
Ana's first thought, on learning that she's pregnant, is about just how insane her husband is going to go when he finds out. Because this is a love-story for the ages.
I’m gripped suddenly by a creeping cold and a deep sense of foreboding. Christian is going to freak, I know, but how much and how far, I have no idea. His words haunt me. “I’m not ready to share you yet.”
This isn’t going to be pleasant, is it?
A vision of a little boy with copper coloured hair and bright grey eyes running through the meadow at the new house invades my thoughts, teasing, and tantalising me with possibilities.
Could one of those possibilities maybe include learning the first fucking thing about prepositional phrases? Please? Your phantom son’s eyeballs are currently scampering merrily through the wildflowers.
My vision morphs into Christian turning away from me in disgust. I’m fat and awkward, heavy with child. He paces the long hall of mirrors, away from me...
Ana gets back to work and blames her assistant for cancelling her gyne appointments. Because it’s not her own fault for being a big squealing idiot who lurches from one drama to the next with the kind of demented relish usually reserved for college am-dram productions of Oedipus Rex.
And because she’s in her office, guess what time it is? YES! E-MAIL TIME!
As usual it’s total pointless filler and Ana is left alone with her own horrid thoughts.
When will I tell him? Tonight? Maybe after sex? Maybe during sex. No, that might be dangerous for the both of us.
Oh dear. How exactly does she think he’s going to react? - because there is nothing about that line that makes me feel anything but vaguely queasy.
When he’s asleep?
Yeah. That’ll work, Ana. Just whisper “I’m pregnant,” in his ear while he’s unconscious. I almost like Ana at this point. Although the book has taken another one of its depressing turns for the worst, I can always count on her to say something completely moronic and make me laugh.
There are several intensely passive-aggressive pages and Christian finally asks her what’s wrong. So she tells him.
He stills, and very slowly all the colour drains from his face. “What?” he whispers, ashen.
“I’m pregnant.”
His brow furrows with incomprehension. “How?”
This kid is so fucked. I don’t think their combined IQs would reach room temperature.
“Did you forget your shot?”
I just gaze at him, unable to speak. Fuck, he’s mad – really mad.
“Christ, Ana!” He bangs his fist on the table, making me jump, and stands so abruptly he almost knocks the dining chair over. “You have one thing, one thing to remember. Shit! I don’t fucking believe it. How could you be so stupid?”
Have you met your wife?
“I know the timing’s not very good.”
“Not very good!” he shouts. “We’ve known each other five fucking minutes...”
This is perfectly true. However, it might be a little late to raise this point since you got married over a month ago.
“I thought we’d agreed on this!” he shouts.
“I know. We had. I’m sorry.”
He ignores me. “This is why. This is why I like control. So shit like this doesn’t come along and fuck everything up.”
‘Shit like this’. Aw. That’s charming. You should cross stitch that. Make a nice crib bumper for the baby.
“Christian, please don’t shout at me.” Tears start to slip down my face.
“Don’t start with the waterworks now,” he snaps. “Fuck.” He runs a hand through his hair, pulling at it as he does. “You think I’m ready to be a father?”
No. In my book, dearie, you’re ready for a pair of concrete socks and a long walk off the end of a short pier. Seriously – I would love to know what it is about this man that makes some women swoon. He’s a monster. A living nightmare.
His voice catches, and it’s a mixture of rage and panic. And it all becomes clear, the fear and loathing writ large in his eyes – his rage is that of a powerless adolescent. Oh, Fifty, I am so sorry. It’s a shock for me, too.
Which is why it’s perfectly okay for him to refer to his potential child as ‘shit like this’, scream at his wife and accuse her of emotionally manipulating him when she starts crying. He's such a dreamboat, isn't he?
Like most times when everything goes south, Ana thinks about hitting the bottle.
...I remember Blip. Now I can’t drink alcohol. Can I? I must study the dos and don’ts Dr. Greene gave me.
Oh Ana. I know you’re just trying to cheer me up by acting dumb.
My husband has just walked out on me because I’m pregnant, my father has been in a major car accident, and there’s Jack Hyde the nutcase trying to make out that I sexually harrassed him. I suddenly have an uncontrollable urge to giggle.
Yeah, your life is just one whacky, zany rom-com right now, isn’t it? God, I’m depressed.
Christian doesn’t come home. Good.
Then he does. And he’s shitfaced steaming stinking drunk. Ana, you picked yourself a real winner here.
He’s giggly drunk and tells her she’s beautiful, which I think is supposed to make the last scene less disturbing. It doesn’t work.
“Christian, I think you need some sleep.”
“And so it begins. I’ve heard about this.”
I frown. “Heard about what?”
“Babies mean no sex.”
Because that’s what this is all about – let’s be honest.
He smiles, but his smile changes as he thinks about it, and a haunted expression crosses his face, a look that chills me to the bone.
“Come on, Christian,” I say gently. I hate his expression. It speaks of horrid, ugly memories that no child should see.
Yours will.
Drunk Christian is cute and playful. I’ll take him over mad-as-hell Christian anytime.
Hey, that’s a great idea. Daddy can quit work and become a full time alcoholic, then he’ll always be in the mood to play.
I stare at him. He’s so goddamned beautiful, even drunk and snoring. His sculptured lips parted, one arm above his head, ruffling his messy hair, his face relaxed.
He’s pretty. That makes everything better.
She goes to pick up Drunky’s clothes and his BlackBerry falls on the floor. And there’s a text from Mrs. Robinson.
“It was good to see you. I understand now. Don’t fret. You’ll make a wonderful father.”
He won’t.
Chapter Twenty-One – The One Where He Threatens To Rape Her
I gape at the text, then look up at the sleeping form of my husband. He’s been out until one thirty in the morning drinking – with her!
Discovering a text from Mrs. Robinson puts Ana back in touch with her inner drama queen, a character who never appears along with her usual imaginary friends, but whom we knew was there all along.
Raw, bitter, humiliating betrayal lances through me. How could he? How could he go to her? Scalding, angry tears ooze down my cheeks. His wrath and his fear, his need to lash out at me I can understand, and forgive – just. But this...this treachery is too much.
Nice to see Ana has her priorities in order.
No, no, no – I can’t believe that it will always be this way, two steps forward and three steps back. But that’s how it’s always been with him. After each setback, we move forward, inch by inch.
Like a drunk, narcoleptic snail with an inner ear problem. You don’t have ‘setbacks’, idiot. The reason your relationship doesn’t work is because you are two people who should never, ever be together.
Ana whines for a few more pages then reads some of Christian’s emails. She has a qualm of conscience about this, when she really shouldn’t, since he’s been systematically invading her privacy from the first moment she faceplanted at his feet.
There’s a soggy mention of Jack Hyde and a hint that he might have a female accomplice, but nobody’s really interested and we’ll get back to what the chapter is really about – Ana acting out a stupid soap opera for the benefit of the readers.
She leaves him in bed alone and locks herself in the sex dungeon for the night. No, don’t get excited – she’s not about to learn to use a vibrator. She’s just going to doss down in there for the night and indulge in a spot of passive-aggressive texting.
“WOULD YOU LIKE MRS. LINCOLN TO JOIN US WHEN WE EVENTUALLY DISCUSS THIS TEXT SHE SENT TO YOU? IT WILL SAVE YOU RUNNING TO HER AFTERWARD. YOUR WIFE.”
There are times when I feel really sorry for Ana. Unfortunately she comes across as one of those incredibly dramatic idiots who will strain your sympathy to breaking point time and time again until you finally have to admit that while their situation is not always of their own making, they don’t exactly help.
She wakes up the next morning to find Christian rattling the door handle. At this point even Ana admits she’s being ‘a bit melodramatic’, which can only mean we’re about to have a full scale episode of Dynasty on our hands.
Sure enough, she goes to the kitchen to find all the staff there and her husband hissing like a pressure cooker about to blow because she wasn’t there for him when he woke up. Just think - he might have had a ‘nightmare’. Or choked to death on his own vomit.
Hold that beautiful thought close to your heart, gentle readers, because this was the moment my heart broke.
“Where were you?” Christian asks, his voice low and husky. Suddenly Sawyer, Taylor, Ryan and Mrs. Jones scatter, scurrying into Taylor’s office, into the foyer, and into the kitchen like terrified rats from a sinking ship.
Taylor, how could you? How could you leave a vulnerable woman alone with an emotionally unstable man? I thought you knew better, Taylor. I thought you had class. Fuck you, man. Fuck you. We are done.
Luckily Ana storms off again and locks herself in the ensuite this time. However once she gets there she once again wears on everyone’s nerves by describing her beauty regime in tedious detail and then going out to flaunt her loveliness in front of her mean old unfaithful husband. Because that’s what adults do when faced with serious problems like unexpected pregnancies.
I peek at him in the mirror, standing motionless in the doorway, watching me. In an act worthy of an Oscar winner, I let my towel fall to the floor and pretend that I am oblivious to my naked body.
Honey, I don’t think they give out Oscars for that. Adult Oscars, maybe. Do they have a Best Dropped Towel Category? I feel like they should, don’t you?
This goes on for several more pages and it’s tiresome. Then he thinks she’s trying to distract him with sex (like he does with her) and tries it on.
“Don’t even think about it, Grey,” I whisper menacingly.
“You’re my wife,” he says softly, threateningly.
“I’m the pregnant woman you abandoned yesterday, and if you touch me I will scream the place down.”
His eyebrows rise in disbelief. “You’d scream?”
“Bloody murder.” I narrow my eyes.
“No one would hear you,” he murmurs, his gaze intense...
So. Yeah. That happened.
Dear Ms. James, with regard to your bestselling ‘erotic’ trilogy, do you have anything to say to the hundred and thousands of readers who were somewhat freaked out by the lovely scene in chapter twenty one of book three where Christian Grey threatens his pregnant wife with rape?
No?
Thought not.
Okay. Deep breath. Thankfully she’s decided to lighten the mood by giving us another gazillion pages of utter, pointless boredom, in which Christian and Ana argue back and forth and forth and back which goes a little something like this.
Him: “I was angry with you for forgetting to take your birth control so I went out and got drunk.”
Her: “You went out and got drunk with the glamorous child molester who touched you up when you were fifteen.”
Him: “Yes, because I was angry with you for forgetting to take your birth control.”
Her: “But you went out with her and you know how I feel about her.”
Him: BECAUSE I WAS ANGRY WITH YOU...
And so on and so on forever and ever. And don’t you just love it? Her birth control. The whole reason she was on hormonal birth control in the first place is because he bitched the air blue about having to use condoms.
I stagger to the bed and flop down on it. I did not resort to tears, shouting or murder, nor did I succumb to his sexpertise. I deserve a Congressional Medal of Honor...
You both deserve a slap with a wet herring.
She fucks off to work and Kate calls her. Apparently poor Kate was subjected to some delightful drunken phone calls when Christian woke up in the night and couldn’t find Ana, and Ana complains once again about ‘the Katherine Kavanagh Inquisition’ in that facetious tone that makes me want to drop her down a well.
Then she has a salmon and cream cheese bagel for lunch. You needed to know that, I’m sure. Then she goes to visit Ray and he says some corny shit about grandchildren, then Christian gets the housekeeper to tell her he’s working late.
Why couldn’t he tell me? Jeez, he really is taking his sulk to a whole new level. I am briefly reminded of the fight over our wedding vows and the major tantrum he had then.
The wedding vows fight, incidentally, was because he wanted her to promise to ‘obey’ him and she didn’t, even though ‘to love, honour and obey’ hasn’t been part of the standard vows since the late 1920’s.
Yes, he’s mad, fair enough. I’m mad. But we are where we are. I haven’t run off loose-lipped to my ex-pedo lover. I want him to acknowledge that that is not an acceptable way to behave.
I know, Ana; it is disappointing. Doubly so since the rest of his behaviour has been impeccable, hasn’t it?
He avoids her all night and so time passes rapidly and almost pleasantly. The next day she’s at work she has another smoked salmon and cream cheese bagel (exciting!) and then she gets call on her BlackBerry from the deeply annoying Mia, only to pick it up and find that Jack Hyde is on the line! Gasp! Thrill! Plot!
Chapter Twenty-Two – Revenge Of The Plot
“Jack?” My voice has disappeared, choked by fear. How is he out of jail?
Since you ask, Ana, I don’t know either. Kidnapping and attempted murder are class A felonies in Washington State. That means anyone charged is automatically ineligible for bail. Kind of puts an even worse complexion on Christian and Ana’s first dreamy night back at the Heathman, doesn’t it?
Jack has kidnapped Mia - for reasons best known to himself. He tells Ana tha
t he wants five million dollars. Today. That’s the kind of cash money that leads your average Albuquerque meth-lord to invest in fried chicken or carwashes. However, if you want to draw attention to your criminal activities, walking around with five million in unlaundered cash is a really good way to go about it.
