Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Eighteen

The doctor Ana meets with is ‘tall, blonde and immaculate’, like all of the professional women in this novel. Think back: all of the blonde clones working at Grey Enterprises, Christian’s adoptive mother and even Kate, to some extent. Don’t forget, girls – you have to be blonde and hot if you want to succeed on your own, and you have to be virginal and pathetic if you want to be looked after by a rich man.

“We shake hands, and I know she’s one of those women who doesn’t tolerate fools gladly,” Ana says of Doctor Greene. I’m sure she’ll have a whale of a time with you, then.

They decide that Ana should go on the contraceptive mini pill. They head back to the living room (is this the most pointless event in the whole book? Couldn’t she have been on the pill already just to save these pointless paragraphs?) and the doctor says to Christian: “Look after her; she’s a beautiful, bright young woman.” How she figured that out from a vaginal exam, I have no idea.

Christian and Ana sit down for lunch – a salad. “Oh thank heavens, nothing too heavy,” says Ana. Yeah, thank heavens. The novel focuses largely on Christian’s issues with wasted food, but reading between the lines, there are more than a few suggestions of Ana having some form of eating disorder.

As they eat, Ana tells Christian that he’s very graceful. I don’t know any men who would consider this to be much of a compliment, unless they’re a dancer. They open some wine, because who doesn’t want to start drinking at 1pm on a Sunday afternoon whilst eating a salad? Christian questions her about the form of contraceptive she’s using. She responds with the mini pill and Christian puts an alarm on his calendar every day to remind Ana to take it at the right time. As though she’s not twenty-two years old and can’t fend for herself.

When they finish their lunch, Christian asks Ana whether she wants to do this. She replies that she hasn’t signed a contract, and Christian says, “I know – but I’m breaking all the rules these days.” This translates as: “I don’t care if you don’t want to do it, because I do, and you’re going to submit to what I want.” They head to the Womb Room.

Christian says that whilst in this room, Ana belongs to him, and he’ll do what he wants to her. No different from any other room, then.

He tells her to take her shoes and her dress off. “He stands back to examine me and absentmindedly folds my dress.” He folds her dress! None of this ripping each other’s clothes off and leaving them wherever they land. No. This is not a bodice-ripper. It’s a bodice-folder.

When he’s taken her bra off, he starts braiding her hair. Braiding it. This man moves gracefully, drinks a lot of white wine, he loves halter-neck dresses and he’s well versed in hair braiding. Make of that what you will.

Once he’s finished braiding her hair, he makes her kneel in the corner, knees apart, staring at the floor. He leaves the room for about ten minutes and comes back with his ripped jeans on. No man over the age of around twenty-one should be wearing ripped jeans. This also goes for baseball caps, backpacks, shoes with wicker soles and scoop-neck t-shirts.

Christian cuffs Ana to the ceiling, and produces a riding crop. He proceeds to wander around her in circles, occasionally striking out with the crop. “It hits me underneath my behind… against my sex.” Her behind. Her sex. This sort of euphemistic language is completely at odds with what’s actually going on, and makes it sounds completely ridiculous. I just hope she doesn’t start referring to her boobs as her ‘bosoms’ or her virginity as her ‘flower’… oh, we’re too late on that last one. Damn.

It doesn’t last very long. Ana comes from Christian hitting her with his riding crop. They have sex seconds later and she comes again. It’s her first real introduction to the BDSM side of things, and it’s quite… well, tame. For all the build-up, I expected something a bit more x-rated than being tied up and lightly spanked (which, let’s face it, is not as rare as Ana would probably imagine). But wait. Christian says he’s not finished with her yet.

“Stamina, Miss Steele,” says Christian. “I haven’t had my fill of you yet.” He ties her hands with the cable ties he bought at Clayton’s at the beginning of the book. This is where he murders her, isn’t it?

He makes her hold onto the bedposts with her bound hands, spanks her across her ‘behind’ again. “So wet. You never disappoint, Miss Steele.” Two orgasms in five minutes and she’s raring to go yet again. Uh huh. Yep. “He eases out of me slowly, and his other hand grabs my hip, holding tight, and then he slams into me, jolting me forward. “Hold on, Anastasia!” he shouts through clenched teeth.” Hold on?! Are they on a rollercoaster? Is she falling off the side of a cliff? Of all the things to shout during sex. HOLD ON!

HOLD ON!!!!!

 

“I feel a quickening,” says Ana. That’s the complete sentence. She feels a quickening. A ‘quickening’ is actually the moment in pregnancy when you start to feel a baby move in your uterus. I really hope she can’t feel a real quickening.

“My name on his lips sends me over the edge as I become all body and spiralling sensation and sweet, sweet release and then completely and utterly mindless.” Try and make sense of this sentence. You can’t. She becomes ‘all body’? As opposed to what? All porridge?

This is her third orgasm in ten minutes. She passes out. When she wakes up, Christian unties her arms and dresses her in a waffle robe ‘as if [she’s] a small child’. One more mention of small children in this book and I’m done. 

TBC!

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Seventeen

Ana wakes to find Christian ‘wrapped around [me] like a victory flag’. Let me just tell you, Ana, that there is nothing victorious about this situation for you.

Christian wakes up soon after; she can feel his erection digging into her hip and says, “I flush, but then I feel seven shades of scarlet from his heat.”

Grammar lesson: using ‘but’ in a sentence suggests two contradictory ideas. “I like dogs but I hate cats.” “I love to read but this book makes me want to eat my own brain.” This sentence makes no sense; it’s like she’s saying, “I love chocolate, but I love chocolate cake.”

They exchange pillow talk; Ana asks Christian whether he slept well in her bed. Christian ‘raises his eyebrows in confused surprise’. I typed ‘raised eyebrows confused surprise’ into Google Images and this is what came up:

SO CONFUSED AND SURPRISED

Christian realises the time and leaps out of bed because he’s late for a meeting. “Sunday,” he says, and the word is ‘pregnant with an unspoken promise’. This is just personal preference but I can’t take it seriously when someone says that a word is ‘pregnant’ with something – especially in this context. Christian leaves, and Ana is pleased with herself for convincing Christian to stay the night with her a whole three times. I sincerely hope she doesn’t actually believe she has any control in this relationship. 

“I grin slowly and climb out of bed. I feel more optimistic than I have for the last day or so.” She hasn’t felt optimistic for a whole day (or so). Your life is so hard, Ana.

Ana emails Christian, saying that she felt debased but she liked it - and she feels guilty for liking it. Christian replies saying that’s completely normal. He tells her to ‘free [her] mind and listen to [her] body’, to which Ana replies that if she listened to her body, she’d be in Alaska right about now. In his next email, Christian says: “Alaska is very cold and no place to run. I would find you.” Um…

It’s Ana’s last day at Clayton’s today – remember Clayton’s? The hardware store she works at, where Christian bought his My First Murderer’s Kit. While she’s on her lunch, she’s summoned to the office by her boss, where a courier has brought her a Blackberry. This novel has more product placement than the Olympics.

Christian has sent her an email, which she reads from her Blackberry, saying that he needs to be able to contact her at all times. Why? It’s nice that he bought her a phone, I guess, but this is just another creepy way for him to track her and trample what was left of her already dubious independence.

At the end of her shift at Clayton’s, her bosses present her with three hundred dollars. I don’t really know why. Maybe they’re paying her off to make sure she never bothers them again? That’s what I’d do.

When she gets home from her shift, Taylor (Christian’s bodyguard, in case you’ve forgotten. The secondary characters in this novel are so forgettable) shows up to collect Ana’s Beetle and take it away for her. Then Jose (Jacob) shows up with Chinese take-out and beers. “We fondly and loudly reminisce as the beer takes effect. It’s been a good four years.” Sorry for bringing this up again but you were a virgin, who only drank virgin cocktails, until two weeks ago, and over the entire four years at college you seem to have made a grand total of two friends and stayed in your apartment reading the same five ‘classic British novels’ over and over. Sounds like you had a blast.

Elliot (can’t remember who this is) shows up and starts kissing Kate (so he’s Kate’s boyfriend), so Ana and Jose head down to a bar to give them some privacy. Ana says that she feels ‘uncomfortable with the unrestrained sexing unfolding’ in front of her, which bodes well for a woman on the edge of signing a contract which will make her a sexual submissive. Also, don’t get me started on the use of the phrase ‘unrestrained sexing’ in one of the world’s best-selling novels.

Again, the author can’t be bothered fleshing out the novel with conversations that don’t include Christian, so we don’t find out what happens at the bar between Ana and Jose. Move along, no character development to see here.

They head back to the apartment a little while later. They hug, and then Jose leaves. Ana checks her MacBook and finds an email from Christian saying the following: “Are you still at work or have you packed your phone, Blackberry and MacBook? Call me, or I may be forced to call Elliot.” Yep, correct. Christian has flipped his lid once more because Ana hasn’t responded to an email. Her phone has five missed calls and a voice message, in which Christian tells Ana that he is not a patient man (that much was evident). This isn’t even borderline madness, it’s absolutely fucking batshit mental and it needs to be curtailed immediately. But, of course, it won’t be.

Ana calls him immediately. Christian says he was worried about her. Bullshit. Ana doesn’t care that he’s literally policing her life; she asks him about his day and says she ‘[wants] his proximity’ and to be able to soothe him. Then – I’m not even joking but, lord above, I wish I was – they do this: “You hang up!” “No, you hang up!” “No, you hang up!” Christ alive. This book makes me want to hang up on life.

The next day (after one of them eventually does hang up), Ana and Kate move into their new apartment, all paid for by Kate’s dad. How convenient. “We both love that we will be in the heart of the city,” says Ana. Because they’re such hip party girls with busy social calendars and so much to do (Ana, at this point, is unemployed and her ‘boyfriend’ wants to keep her under lock and key three days a week).

A man delivers flowers and champagne (Bollinger. That good old Bolly that they love so much) addressed to Ana and Kate. The delivery man is bewitched by Kate, who is described as having her hair ‘piled high with escaping tendrils’:

Don't pretend you didn't do this in the 90's. Also – ‘bewitched’ by Kate. See what I did there? ;)

Christian has sent the flowers (obviously. Did you think it would be from someone normal like their parents or something? Pur-lease) and there’s a helicopter balloon attached for extra cheese.

The next day is Sunday; the day of reckoning. She drives to Christian’s at around 1pm and stands in the lift, checking herself out in her plum dress. I should note that every single time she has mentioned this plum dress, she has felt the need to backtrack and establish that it’s actually Kate’s dress. I couldn’t give a shit whether it was the Queen’s dress; once you’ve told us once that the plum dress belongs to Kate, we, as readers, will probably remember this fact.

The lift arrives at Christian’s penthouse and Taylor is there to greet her. “Good afternoon, Miss Steele,” he says. “Oh please call me, Ana,” she replies. Another textbook example of great punctuation at work from E. L. James. It sounds like she’s telling someone called Ana to call her, when really she should be telling someone not called Ana that it’s okay to call her Ana. With me?

Ana goes into the apartment and Christian is sat reading the Sunday papers. Christian rises and ‘strolls towards [Ana], an amused appraising smile’ on his lips, before ‘[proffering] a gentle light kiss on the lips’. Oh, so we’re just forsaking the use of commas altogether now? Okay, cool. Breakin’ all the rules.

Christian tells Ana that the doctor will be here soon, so she should get something to eat. Christian also mentions that his parents are having dinner that evening and he’d like her to join them. He says he’s never introduced anyone to his family before. Then the doctor comes and puts an end to that conversation before it even really got started. “Ready for some contraception?” asks Christian, like some sort of warped game show host. “Fitted diaphragm? Come on down!” Christian also says that he’d pay good money to watch Ana’s appointment with the gynaecologist. What a totally normal thing to say.

Chapter orgasm count: none yet, but thousands surely imminent.

Chapter alcohol units: beer with Jose, more Bollinger out of teacups.

TBC!

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Sixteen

Anastasia wakes and inhales ‘the most seductive scent on the planet… Christian’. She wants to breathe this elixir for eternity. Vomit. I took a brief hiatus from writing these posts for my sanity, and I felt just about sane enough to return to them, but one paragraph in and I’m already banging my head against a wall. She starts to stroke his chest, which apparently, is a big no-go area for him.

“Why don’t you like to be touched?” Ana asks. “Because I’m fifty shades of fucked-up, Anastasia,” Christian replies. *TITLE OF THE BOOK KLAXON*

He goes on to hint that he had a very tough introduction to life, but doesn’t want Ana to ask any more. “Miss Steele, you are not just a pretty face. You’ve had six orgasms so far and all of them belong to me.” Is there supposed to be a link between these two sentences? Like how clever she is correlates directly to how many orgasms she’s had? A sort of ‘well done, you can count’? (Also, as we know from our end-of-chapter orgasm count, this number is false. The author can’t even be bothered to read back over her own drivel and add them up.)

Oh, but wait! Ana hasn’t told Christian about that non-orgasm she had in her sleep. “Do you have something to tell me?” Christian asks, his voice ‘suddenly stern’. Don’t tell me – he’s going to punish her for having an orgasm and not telling him. Crime of crimes. People have been hanged for less.

Ana tells him that she had a dream about him and woke up having an orgasm. “And like a small child, I briefly entertain the thought that if I can’t see him, then he can’t see me.” Small child references. Again. Mature and appropriate. Christian starts getting dressed and Ana is all panicky: “I don’t want him to go. What can I do?” Then Christian kills the mood a little more.

“When is your period due?” he asks. Just what we all like to hear about in our erotica: menstruation! I love talking about my period with guys I hardly know. “I hate wearing these things,” Christian says, holding up a condom, putting it on the floor, then putting on his jeans. I worriedly read forward a few pages to see if Christian actually moves the condom from the floor and puts it in a bin, but he doesn’t. He just leaves it there. Menstruation and a used condom discarded on the floor, all in one paragraph. Steamy.

Ana tells him that her period is due next week (I was convinced she was going to disclose that she’s never had a period before, such is her inexperience) and Christian says that she needs to sort out some contraception. Christian arranges for his personal doctor to come and see Ana at his apartment to satisfy another of his stupid whims. He says that he must be going, but he’ll see her on Sunday because he wants to ‘do a scene’ with her. I hope it’s this scene:

Christian says that she has to sign the contract first, of course, and Ana wonders what might happen if she doesn’t agree to sign it. “Oh, you know, explosions, car chases, kidnapping, incarceration,” replies Christian. I think/hope he intends it as a joke but something tells me this is exactly what would happen.

Ana rolls her eyes. Oops. Big mistake. I’ve tried to gloss over the times this has happened since Christian first noticed it (of which there were so many) but this time, Christian decides to act on it. “What did I say I’d do to you if you rolled your eyes at me again?” he says. “I’m a man of my word. I’m going to spank you, and then I’m going to fuck you very quick and very hard. Looks like we’ll need that condom after all.” He’s such a smooth talker, no wonder women all over the world are falling for this guy…

Christian proceeds to spank Ana, eighteen times in total. "I cry out on the tenth slap – and I’m unaware that I have been mentally counting the blows," she says. How can you be unaware that you were counting the blows if you’re then aware of the number of blows there has been? Counting requires some sort of awareness; you can’t count without being aware of the thing that you’re counting, Jesus heavenly Christ, this is so bad.

“My face hurts, it’s screwed up so tight. He strokes me gently and then the blow comes. I cry out again.” Now, I’m not one to pass judgement on a BDSM lifestyle, but in my opinion, this isn’t particularly hot to read. It’s a little bit uncomfortable for me. I’m aware many people will enjoy reading this but I’m not one of them. “My body is singing, singing from his merciless assault.” Assault. Don't use this word in a sexual context.

“Next time, I will get you to count,” says Christian. “Now, where’s that condom…” Enough with the condom talk, PLEASE! We don’t need constantly reminding every two seconds that you’re being safe. Most of the people reading this are adult enough to assume that you’re having safe sex, without constantly having to endure lengthy paragraphs about the ‘rip of the foil’ from the condom packet and blah, blah, blah.

Ana has an orgasm within about five seconds. I think there is something medically wrong with her. She is one of those lurid, made-up headlines from the front cover of a Chat magazine. “I have four hundred orgasms a day… with my abusive lover!!”

“Oh, baby. Welcome to my world,” Christian breathes, as she collapses onto him. This is a vile, disgusting, cheesy line and it should be banned from the planet. Christian starts picking at the strap on her camisole and whinges that she should be sleeping in silks and satins, implying that her dress sense is far too common for his taste. Ana protests that she likes her sweats and camisole. “We’ll see,” says Christian. Is nothing ever good enough for this guy? Buy her some nice underwear or silky nighties, but buy them because you think she’ll like them, not just because you don’t approve of her sleepwear.

Moronic sentence #13827: “We lie for a few more minutes, hours who knows, and I think I doze.” Words fail me. I wish words had failed E. L. James when she came to write this book.

Moronic sentence[s] #13828: [on being spanked] “I really don’t get it. But strangely, I do.” Oh, come on. You either get it or you don’t.

Christian goes to get some baby oil from Ana’s bathroom and rubs it into her backside. “From make-up remover to smoothing balm for a spanked ass, who would have thought it was such a versatile liquid,” thinks Ana. They should put this on the next advert.

Christian leaves. Ana gets all upset about losing her sense of self and identity (yeah, really) and decides to call her mum. “Her voice is soft and comforting, and I know that she cares.” She’s your fucking mother, of course she does, you dimwit.

Ana cries about Christian, carefully omitting the parts where he wants to tie her to the ceiling of his sex dungeon. Her mum comes across as a vapid moron, who is more pleased that her daughter has finally found a man than the fact that she graduated earlier that day. Conforms to the tone of the rest of the book, really.

Ana’s mum invites her to Georgia to stay with her for a while. “Oh boy, this is tempting. Run away to Georgia. Grab some sunshine, some cocktails.” You didn’t drink until a week ago.

Their phone call is interrupted when Kate comes in, and Ana recounts the whole sorry saga back to Kate (minus the S&M parts). If the rest of this chapter is just going to be Ana whinging about how awful her love life is, then I might just skip to the next one.

Kate and Ana decide to drink their sorrows away with yet more wine. “[Kate] hands me a cup of wine. It won’t taste as good as the Bolly.” The Bolly, she says. She’s a connoisseur now, apparently.

Ana decides to check her emails before she goes to bed, and finds one from Christian saying that she’s, among other things, ‘exquisite’, ‘brave’, ‘witty’ and ‘intelligent’. Did he mean to send this to someone else? He also tells her never to drive her Beetle again, and if she does, he’ll know about it. I bet he's got the car bugged or her house under surveillance. The guy’s an utter control freak.

There’s a vile exchange of emails in which Christian implies that only Taylor, his henchman, can take Ana’s car and sell it because he’s a big tough man and will therefore be able to handle a slightly-older-than-average vehicle. Women are helpless, clueless creatures who couldn’t maintain control of a Segway. This book, I swear…

Ana makes a little joke about how she doesn’t like Christian very much because he never stays with her. It’s a completely throwaway remark. Ana closes the laptop and gets in bed. She cries for a bit, for good measure.

Minutes later, someone bursts into the flat and is heard having a shouting match with Kate. “What the fuck have you done to her now?” Kate is shrieking. Oh. Wonder who’s at the door? Christian bangs open Ana’s bedroom door and switches on the light. He gazes down at Ana, his expression ‘grave’. “What’s going on?” he asks.

Basically, Christian is to humour what Ana is to feminism. He storms in and demands to know what’s wrong. Her innocuous email with the joke about him not staying has spooked him and now he's desperate to know what he's done wrong. Insecure, much?

“I’m sure I’m responsible, but I have no idea why,” he says. Let’s just rewind. She’s known this guy approximately three weeks. They’re both adults. She made a joke about never seeing him again (after he spanked her red raw for ten minutes) and he came haring back to her house, stormed in and demanded to know why. Now tell me that if this happened in any fledgling relationship, you wouldn’t run an absolute mile. (If you wouldn’t run a mile, you are probably the key demographic for this book. I feel bad for you.)

The conversation moves onto why Christian wants to inflict pain on Ana. He says that he likes the control that it brings. He wants ultimate control over another human, which I guess is just one stop away from saying you want ultimate control over the world, and that’s how evil dictators are born.

“You beguile me, Christian. Completely overwhelm me. I feel like Icarus flying too close to the Sun,” says Ana. I’ll be right back; I’m going to put my eyeballs in some bleach. They will never be the same after reading that vomit-inducing sentence.

Christian, however, seems to enjoy it. He gasps. “Oh, Anastasia, you’ve bewitched me. Isn’t it obvious?” Actually, I think I might just drink that bleach. 

Chapter orgasm count: 1

Alcohol unit count: 'Bolly'. Red wine. Planning cocktails with her mum. She's a bona fide alcoholic already.

TBC!

I know I haven't updated in a while, I honestly needed a break from this mess of a book. 

If anybody is interested, I was recently provided with a link to the original fan fiction version of 50 Shades, called Master Of The Universe. It can be found here, and it'll make you weep for all humanity. Don't say you weren't warned! Thanks to @TheSimonPeter for the link.

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Fifteen

Christian shows up at Ana’s apartment in jeans and a leather jacket. “I take a moment to admire the pretty,” thinks Ana. “I thought we’d celebrate your graduation. Nothing beats a good Bollinger,” says Christian. Have I ever mentioned how much I absolutely hate these two characters? They drink the expensive champagne out of teacups and it’s all maddeningly adorably quaint and romantic.

Ana tells Christian she doesn’t want the Tess first-edition book, but Christian says that as his submissive, she must accept it. Christian gets angry. Ana tells him that she might donate it to charity. Christian is still angry. “The atmosphere between us is now tense. I don’t know what to do. I stare down at my fingers. How do I retrieve this situation?” I don’t really understand what Ana has supposedly done, nor why Christian is so angry. Does nobody else find it intensely disturbing that she is assuming that Christian’s anger is all her fault, even though she’s done absolutely nothing even remotely wrong? Her meekness and his domineering nature are the recipe for a very dangerous, abusive relationship, dressed up as ‘BDSM’.

Christian goes on to explain that he will buy her many expensive presents as a result of their ‘arrangement’. Prostitution bells are a-ringin’. They carry on drinking Christian’s champagne, with Ana becoming steadily more suspicious that Christian is trying to get her drunk. Oh, good. Psychological abuse, prostitution and dubiously consented sex due to alcohol consumption. This chapter is just full of fun already.

Christian grills Ana, and I mean grills her about what she’ll do when she moves to Seattle. She tells him about her interviews for the internships. “You were going to tell me this when?” Christian asks. Maybe she’d have said something if you stopped getting unreasonably angry at nothing in particular, buying her extravagant presents and trying to get her pissed enough to sign your contract. Give the girl a chance.

“Don’t be obtuse, Anastasia, which publishing houses?” he scolds. Yes, that’s right, scolds. Scolding her for not telling him, in all the two weeks they’ve known each other, what her plans for her whole future are. Ana rolls her eyes.

“Next time you roll your eyes at me, I will take you across my knee,” says Christian. This is getting serious now. “He fills my cup and I drink practically all of it,” says Ana. Just so you know, in this five-minute conversation up to now, she’s drained her cup no less than three times. They start to go over the soft limits (which are written up in full in the novel, for the third time, as though we’ve all forgotten what they are in the ten pages since the last time they were completely listed) that Ana doesn’t want to agree to. She says that anal intercourse doesn’t necessarily appeal to her.

“I’d really like to claim your ass, Anastasia. But we’ll wait for that. Besides, it’s not something we can dive into. Your ass will need training. It’ll need careful preparation.” Her ass needs training? I get the feeling that in the movie version of this book, there might be some kind of fitness montage here, with Ana working out in a gym while Christian times her on a stopwatch to see how long it takes her to crush a grape between her bum cheeks. Or that’s what would happen if I directed it, anyway. Ana drains another cup of champagne, taking the tally to about five in about as many minutes. The important point here is that Ana doesn’t initially want to do anal, but Christian shrugs off her concerns and talks her into it.

They move onto use of sex toys. “Butt plug? Does it do what it says on the tin?” asks Ana (can you imagine any other uses for it with a name like ‘butt plug’?). I don’t think you have to be particularly debauched to know the function of a butt plug at twenty-two years old. It’s called ‘not living life under a rock’. Christian laughs at her because she’s so inexperienced. I’m not laughing anymore, I’m shaking my head and wondering what in the world the author was thinking when giving her protagonist the approximate life experience and sexual knowledge of a twelve-year old. Again, Ana doesn’t really want to use butt plugs, but Christian persuades her to give it a go. Coercion.

Discussion moves to bondage. Suspension is a no-no for Ana, and she’s nervous about being gagged in case she can’t use a safe word. As she’s trying to articulate these fears to Christian, we get this: “My brain is beginning to fog… hmm alcohol.” Yeah, perfect, and just as Christian planned it, I assume. Needless to say, Christian persuades her into trying it. Are we sensing a general theme here? There isn’t even any point in them sitting to discuss this contract because whenever Ana has an issue with something, Christian completely disregards her concern and says that they’ll try it anyway.  

Next up for discussion is the amount of pain Anastasia would like to receive. On the list are: caning, whipping, biting, paddling, hot wax and genital clamps. Ana is very nervous about all of them. “This is part of the deal, baby,” coaxes Christian. “There, that wasn’t so bad was it?” He’s essentially gotten her to agree to almost everything on the contract, by refusing to listen to her concerns, laughing at her inexperience and getting her drunk.

The last thing on the discussion list is the ‘hearts and flowers’ that Ana so badly wants. Christian has agreed to try it out (how good of him), but on one condition: that she accepts his graduation present. He takes her outside and there’s a shiny, red Audi sitting outside. “I am appalled on one level, grateful on another, shocked that he’s actually done it, but the overriding emotion is anger.” 

What?! 

You’ve let him get you drunk and talk you into participating in all of the things which you’re so nervous about on his ridiculous contract, you’ve allowed him to manipulate you into thinking you’re doing something wrong by donating the Tess books to charity, he’s forced his way into your graduation ceremony, ruined the moment of handing over your diploma by quizzing you about your love-life, and he gets angry whenever another guy even looks your way… but the thing you’re most annoyed about is the fact that he’s bought you a new car?! God, don’t you just hate it when your rich boyfriend buys you a brand new Audi because your old Beetle is falling apart at the seams? I know I do. But boy, do I love that psychological abuse that he subjects me to.

Ana finally warms to the car (didn’t take long, there’s a sex scene coming up and I assume E. L. James was anxious to get to it. Character development is boring). “Thank you for the car, sir,” she says. “You are one challenging woman, Ana Steele,” responds Christian (hahahahahaha, okay, sure she is).

Christian drags Ana back inside to get her naked, as he so succinctly puts it. “Please don’t be angry with me,” Ana whispers. “I’m sorry about the car and the books. You scare me when you’re angry.” Urgh. Urgh. Poor Ana. This is psychological abuse. He has managed to make her feel guilty about her own feelings, and she’s begging him not to be angry with her for it. This is about as much as I’ve been able to relate or feel sorry for Ana in the whole book, and I’m not even sure E. L. James intended it that way.

Christian doesn’t even apologise. He starts taking her clothes off. “His well-manicured fingernail gently grazes down my back.” Christian goes for manicures, drinks white wine and knows what a halter-neck is. Not that I’m suggesting anything.

He unzips her dress and starts touching her boobs. “Shall I make you come this way?” he asks. No, because you can’t. You can’t. (To the very nice anonymous lady who commented on a previous post saying that this was possible, please make yourself known to me! I have many questions…)

Ana gives him another blowjob (it’s perfect, of course) and then there’s a whole big clumsy section about her putting a condom on Christian. E. L. James gets her realism and her erotica completely confused. Personally, I’d prefer a little more realism in the way the characters interact when they’re not having sex, and a little less realism in the gory details of Ana ripping open the condom wrapper to find it all “rubbery and tacky in [her] fingers”. That’s turning nobody on.

The next page or so is the description of Christian and Ana having sex, except it all… looks… like this… as though… E. L. James’… cat has got its… paw continuously stuck… on the full stop… key, and she’s not… even bothered to… correct… it… afterwards. The punctuation in this book is diabolical. I understand it’s supposed to have a breathlessly, heady sort of feel, but it’s so fucking annoying that I can’t bring myself to read it enough to properly analyse it and bring you the hilarious parts. Well, except for maybe this: “The thought pushes me, weighted with concrete, over the edge, and I climax around him… shouting incoherently.” Weighted with concrete? I don’t even understand the metaphor in that, what’s it supposed to mean?! I do like that she clarifies that she’s ‘shouting incoherently’ though, as though the last page of narration has been anything but incoherent.

Alcohol count: practically a full bottle of Bollinger in approximately ten minutes.

Orgasm count: just the one, concrete-weighted and all (now at eight in total).

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fourteen

We start chapter fourteen with Ana in the throes of a sex dream about Christian, in which he is wearing old, faded, ripped Levis. In my head he looks like this:

"I'm Christian Grey. I fuck - HARD."

In the dream, he’s whipping Ana in all sorts of places with a riding crop. We’ve all been there, sex dreams are a lot of fun. Except Ana literally wakes up half way through having another orgasm. Seriously?!

“I had no idea that I could orgasm in my sleep.” Well, that’s because you can’t. I am like the 50 Shades Mythbuster, but men (and women), please believe me: you can’t have an orgasm from boob-groping, and you can’t have one in your sleep (while I’m here, that scene in 40 Days and 40 Nights? Completely impossible. If you could come from getting a flower petal blown around your stomach, women would buy hand-held fans instead of vibrators).  

Ana stumbles into the kitchen, still wearing Christian’s jacket. She slept in it. The bunny boiler inside this girl has lain dormant for so many years, and now it’s making up for lost time. Kate tries to ask Ana what happened last night, but Ana deflects the questions and offers to listen to Kate’s valedictorian speech for their graduation, and because no one in this story has an attention span that can safely reach thirty seconds, Kate agrees. “I worked on it last night over at Lilah’s,” says Kate. Who the hell is Lilah? I love the way E. L. James just invents characters for no reason. Why couldn’t she just have said that Kate worked on it last night and left the sentence right there? No doubt we’ll never see Lilah again. This is brilliant story-telling.

Ana’s dad, Ray, shows up at their apartment. He gives her a ride to the campus for the graduation. “Good luck, Annie. You seem awfully nervous, do you have to do anything?” Sorry Ray, I know we’ve only just met you, but this is a ridiculous question. It’s her graduation day, of course she’s nervous.

Ana’s reaction is even more stupid: “Holy crap… why has Ray picked today to be so observant?” Yeah, ‘holy crap’ indeed. I highly doubt he’s sussed from your facial expressions that you’re about to graduate whilst coming face to face with your lover, who wants to suspend you from the ceiling and have you try out his slow-cooked asparagus (euphemism alert!).

Ana takes her place in the auditorium, between two girls who know each other. When Christian comes out on stage (wearing the tie he used to bind Ana to her bed. Smooth…), the two girls get all giggly. “Must be Christian Grey. He’s hot. Is he single?” Ana can’t resist. “I don’t think so. I think he’s gay,” she tells them. This is a bit of a spiteful reaction. I don’t really like Ana much, I’m sure you can tell.

Christian gets up to give his speech. It turns that not only is he mind-numbingly hot and stupefyingly rich, he’s also a philanthropist. He is on a mission to eradicate world hunger and is donating a few million dollars to the university’s environmental science department. Awww! Redemption! (I’m kidding, he’s still a dick. Just a dick with a lotta money and no other way to spend it.)

He says that it’s a very ‘personal mission’ to him, and Ana deduces that he must have been starved as a child before he was adopted by his current family. “I’m seized by a sense of raw outrage, poor, fucked-up, kinky, philanthropic Christian…” Oh, hey! We’re back with the nonsensical sentences. I thought we were past those, but apparently not.

After Christian finishes his speech, the graduates go up one by one to collect their degrees from Christian himself. He takes this opportunity to effectively sabotage one of the most significant moments in Ana’s boring life so far, by quizzing her on stage as to why his emails went unanswered.

Let’s just stop for a second. The girl is graduating and he can’t even think about anything but their undecided love life. If you needed any more proof of what a self-obsessed creep the guy is, I’ve just presented it to you on a silver platter.

After the ceremony, when Ana should be spending time with her family and friend(s), Christian finds her, drags her into the men’s locker room, locks the door and begins to interrogate her as to why she hasn’t replied to his emails. The most important day of her life, and he expects her to be constantly checking her emails to reply to his stupid requests. Ladies, tell me that this is not what you want.

As their relationship has been going not so steady for a full five days, Christian feels it is very important that he meets Ana’s stepdad right away. “Just tell him I’m your friend, Anastasia,” he coaxes. Ana takes Ray for a drink in the marquee, and as they’re toasting her graduation, someone called Ethan runs up to Ana, picks her up and spins her around.

Before I even go any further, I am going to lay my entire life savings on the line and bet that Ethan’s presence in this novel is merely just another way of regurgitating what has been rammed down our throats constantly: Ana is irresistible to all men. Within the next three pages, he’ll have made an inappropriate comment, and Christian will have appeared and pissed all over Ana (metaphorically, but you never know with this book) to mark his territory.

It turns out that Ethan is Kate’s brother (who didn’t exist until now). He’s been travelling round Europe for a few months and his ‘dirty blonde hair tousled and sexy-looking’. That’s an actual phrase from the book. Please make sense, I beg you.

Ethan has got his arm around Ana’s waist when Christian saunters over. “Christian turns his arctic glare on Ethan, who still has one arm around me… Christian holds his hand out to me. “Ana, baby,” he murmurs, and I nearly expire at the endearment.” See what I mean? Ana = tree. Christian = dog. Endearment = urine. And what did I say? Called it.

In the middle of this exchange, Kate has also managed to drop in to Ray the fact that Christian is Ana’s boyfriend. Kate has no chill; she does not have Ana’s back whatsoever. Christian and Ray get on like a house on fire (because no one has any unnecessary beef in this book, except for Christian) and Ana goes to call Kate out. “How could you out me to Ray?” Ana asks. “He seems trés cool about it, Ana. Don’t sweat it,” says Kate. ‘Trés cool’. ‘Don’t sweat it’. Kate sounds so with-it and hip. (If you are someone who says ‘trés cool’ as part of your everyday vocabulary, slap yourself immediately.)

“[Christian’s] been watching you like a hawk,” Kate observes (not a handsaw!). Ana returns to Christian and Ray, and Ray excuses himself to use the restroom. Christian honestly can’t contain himself for ten seconds. “You look lovely, Anastasia, this halter-neck dress suits you, and I get to stroke your back, feel your beautiful skin.” Note: the vast majority of straight men don’t know a halter-neck from a redneck.

Ana says that she doesn’t know if she can go through with signing the contract because she wants ‘more’. She wants hearts and flowers. The fact that Christian introduced her to his mum, met her stepdad, bought her a laptop and generally did things he’s never done with women, all within a week of meeting her, apparently isn’t enough for Ana.

Christian agrees to try. Oh. That was easy. Not much persuasion needed at all there. It's almost as if the whole point of this novel wasn't an intriguing storyline or in-depth character study, but an experiment to see how many times a fictional character can have an orgasm in five hundred pages.

“Jesus, Ana, you’re so unexpected. You take my breath away.” Imagine if someone said this to you. Just vomited a bit.

With regards to what she’s just agreed to, Ana is… conflicted, shall we say? “What have you done? My subconscious screams at me. My inner goddess is doing back flips in a routine worthy of a Russian Olympic gymnast.” I would love it if the twist to this story was that Ana is a schizophrenic who has invented this entire scenario in her head, Christian and his womb-room included. That would be a cool story.

Christian leaves, Ana bids goodbye to Ray, then goes back to the apartment. The first thing she does is switch on her phone. Four missed calls, one voice message and two texts. The texts: “Are you home safe” and “Call me”. Oh no. Christian can’t punctuate. This is a deal-breaker for me (if the sociopathic tendencies, intense paranoia and fixation with controlling everything around him weren't already deal-breakers enough). A man who can’t properly punctuate his texts is the worst kind of unsexy. I think this is just me, though (although would it have killed him to just put a question mark at the end there?). She also has two emails from him when she turns on her computer. I’d wager they’ve been apart for around an hour. This is next-level clingy. Ana and Christian totally deserve each other.

Christian says he’s coming over to Ana’s because he’s not happy about her driving her car. The man’s a paranoid idiot. Ana goes to retrieve her first edition copy of Tess of the D’Urbervilles ready to give back to him. I hope she beats him over the head with it. (I don’t. Domestic violence = not cool.)

I do wish they’d stop contaminating one of my favourite books by association with this painfully dire one.  On the front of her copy, she scribbles: “I agree to the conditions, Angel; because you know what my punishment ought to be; only – only – don’t make it more than I can bear!” Urgh. Goodbye, (what was left of) Ana’s self-respect. It was nice (briefly) knowing you.

TBC!

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Thirteen

Ana calls her mum the next day – it turns out that Bob (Ana’s mum’s new husband) has had a fall, and this means that Ana’s mum can’t come to her graduation. E. L. James doesn’t like mummies very much, does she? I don’t know many mums that would miss their only daughter’s graduation ceremony for any reason. Ana is a complete saint, so she is serenely forgiving about the entire thing and doesn’t get mad about the fact that her parent won’t be present at one of the biggest events of her life. I swear Ana is constructed entirely from cardboard. It’s okay to have negative feelings, you know. Most people do.

When she’s finished on the phone, Ana finds an email from Christian. “… maybe he’s cancelling dinner,” she thinks. “The thought is so painful.” I bet it’s not as painful as the time he tugged on your pubes. Whatever. 

Turns out Christian has sent her a dictionary definition of the word ‘submissive’. The definition dates back to 1580-1590, and in her reply, Ana reminds Christian that we are actually in 2011. Ana didn’t have an email address until five minutes ago, but is effectively telling Christian to ‘get with the times’.  She also sends him the dictionary definition of the word ‘compromise’. Touché.

Ana calls Ray (her stepdad and father figure), who confirms he’s coming to her graduation. Ana contemplates that Ray’s ‘quiet fortitude’ is exactly what she needs when she meets Christian to discuss their terms tomorrow. “Maybe I can channel my inner Ray,” she says. She wants to channel her inner stepdad to properly prepare for a discussion about BDSM with her new lover. I don’t think I need to add anything to that sentence, I think we’re all on the same page here.

“Kate and I concentrate on packing, sharing a bottle of cheap red wine as we do.” Yeah, that long-standing tradition of quaffing red wine, at least for the last week or so that you’ve been consuming alcohol. 

Next thing I know, Ana has gone to sleep, woken up and someone called Paul is begging her for a date. I actually have no idea who Paul is, and I’ve been analysing this book chapter by chapter. If you know who Paul is, please put your answers on a postcard (or in the comments below) because I am clueless.

Anyway, after Ana declines the offer of a date with ‘Paul’ (whose sole purpose seems to be to reaffirm how irresistible Ana is to men), she starts getting ready for her meal with Christian. “I wish I could feel more enthused about clothes and make an extra effort, but clothes are just not my thing,” says Ana. “I decide on the plum-coloured sheath dress.” Ana hates fashion, but she knows what a ‘sheath dress’ is, obviously. 

“I rarely wear make-up – it intimidates me,” she says. Right, of course, because you’re so pure and virginal and naturally beautiful and you don’t need to sully your face with such muck, and none of your literary heroines had to put up with this crap, and you know what? Just give me a break. Your dazzling perfection, which you are so ridiculously oblivious to, is making me want to puke.

Ana meets Christian at the hotel he’s been staying at, and he sits them down and orders them some drinks. They start to discuss their contract. Christian admits that the contract isn’t legally binding, and I think that is just a real shame, because I’d definitely read the alternate ending where Ana breaks the contract and Christian drags her through the courts to try and legally exert his right to use nipple clamps on her whenever he sees fit. Part of me thinks the contract only exists in the novel so that E. L. James could go into gory detail about anal fisting and show off her knowledge of legal jargon simultaneously.  

Christian asks Ana whether she’d prefer to eat in the restaurant or in his suite. Ana says that she’d prefer to conduct this conversation on neutral ground, in public, probably so that he can’t tie her to the nearest bedframe and try to sexually manipulate her into giving in to him again. Christian says he has a private dining room already booked. So he pretty much asked her what she wanted to do, and when she answered him honestly, he said, “Well sorry, we’re not doing that, we’re doing it my way, so I don’t know why I asked.” This guy, I swear…

Christian orders oysters for their starter. Ana’s never tried oysters. Let’s just say from this point on - to save me typing it out every single time - Ana has never tried anything before. Ana tries the oysters and likes them. “Good girl,” says Christian. Patronising. So Ana is channelling her inner stepdad, and Christian is treating her like his adopted daughter. This is creepy on so many levels.

They continue discussing the contract; Ana wants to know whether Christian ever hurt any of his submissives. He admits that he once tied a rope too tight when suspending someone from his playroom ceiling. “I hold my hand up begging him to stop,” Ana says. Why ask if you don’t want to know? It seems to me that she’s come here to discuss this contract in detail but whenever Christian does go into detail, she freaks out and doesn’t want to hear it.

Christian gives a speech that’s quite disturbing, but it seems to be coming from the right place. He says that from the moment she crosses his threshold, she will be his, and he will fuck her, discipline her and train her as he sees fit. But he understands that she’s never done this before, and he promises to take it very slowly and earn her trust. He admits that the terminology in the contract is just to help her get into the mindset of the role he’s asking her to fulfil, and the whole thing is quite convincing, actually. I’m still not quite over the fact that he tried to pressure her into it using tied-to-the-bed sex, and I still think he wants Ana for purely selfish reasons, but it’s a convincing speech.

Ana seems convinced too, and they get back to negotiating the smaller details. Ana says she wants full control over what she eats. On one hand, that’s a completely reasonable demand, but on the other, Ana has constantly reiterated throughout the book so far that she doesn’t feel like eating and can’t stomach any food, which sends eating-disorder-alarm-bells ringing in my head. She never finishes a meal. It’s reasonable for Christian to want his sub to be in good health, but it’s also fair that Ana should be able to eat what and when she wants. I find myself on the fence, and I like it. Books are supposed to encourage debate, not be so utterly one-sided and make you hate every single one of the characters.

They continue to negotiate, and then Christian reverts back to the self-serving sociopath from earlier chapters. They’re politely discussing the fact that Christian needs her fit and healthy, so she must improve her diet, and then… “And right now, I want to peel you out of that dress.” The author literally cannot go one chapter without a sex scene, now that the floodgates have opened (no pun intended… ew).

“Christian. You use sex as a weapon. It really isn’t fair,” Ana says. I fist-pumped so hard at this.

“You’re right, I do,” muses Christian. “In life you use what you know, Anastasia. Doesn’t change how much I want you. Here. Now.” No apology, no acknowledgement that what he does is fundamentally wrong, just a lame excuse about him knowing nothing else, and a diversionary tactic in the form of sex, again.

“How can he seduce me with just his voice? I’m panting already,” says Ana. I really hope she doesn’t mean this literally, and that she’s not sat in the restaurant panting like an actual dog as a result of those cringe-worthy sentences. How embarrassing. 

Christian tells her that he knows she wants him, because he felt the tablecloth move and that definitely means she’s pressing her thighs together. This is some next level Derren Brown shit.

There’s another half-baked reference to classic literature. Always Elizabeth Bennett, Jane Eyre and Tess. Ana has never read anything else. Neither has E. L. James. She’s read synopses on BookRags at best. Christian tells her he couldn’t care less about food right now. Make your bloody mind up; you wanted full control over her eating habits about thirty seconds ago! Get it together, man.

Ana decides to do her very best to play him at his own game. “Picking up a spear of asparagus, I gaze at him and bite my lip. Then very slowly put the tip of the cold asparagus in my mouth and suck it.” She’s giving an asparagus blowjob. There’s a sentence I bet you never thought you’d read.

But seriously, she lost her virginity a week ago and now she’s giving head to random vegetables as a form of seduction. This is some very fast progression; vegetable blowjobs are usually saved for at least the fifth date.

The waiter enters while she’s teasing Christian with her seductive asparagus, and Ana decides that she must leave right now, to ensure she has a clear mind to mull over this discussion. She knows that if she stays, it will only end one way. I hate how she phrases this; it makes it sound as though she has no choice but to have sex with him, which, for your (and Ana’s) information, is probably classed as rape.

Ana also has her graduation ceremony the next day, which she has to be up early for (and which, coinci-fucking-dentally, Christian is making a speech at. Whaddya know). Christian tries to persuade her to stay. Honestly, it’s just one night apart; you’re not going to combust. Get a grip.

Christian gives in and escorts her to the lobby. “Holy crap, this could be it,” thinks Ana. This could be what? He’s just walking you out; you’re going to see him tomorrow at your graduation. “Holy crap, this could be the last time I see him for a whole twenty-four hours!” 

Christian gives Ana his jacket so she doesn’t get cold (aw), and then completely insults the bashed up VW Beetle that Ana drives, which was a present from her stepdad. “Oh, Anastasia. I think we can do better than this.” How awfully condescending. Way to make her feel inferior, you complete and utter arse.

Ana drives home crying. I don’t know what she’s crying about; maybe her plans for a vegetable-themed night of tantalising seduction have been completely ruined. I would definitely read that spin-off - 50 Shades of Gherkin.

Orgasm count: remains at seven in total. 

Alcohol units: a bottle of wine shared with Kate (as they do), a glass of wine ordered by Christian. 

TBC!