Get ready, kids.
"I wake suddenly, confused. My bedroom is shrouded in darkness, and beside me Ana sleeps, her breathing gentle and even. I prop myself up on one elbow and run my hand through my hair, with the uncanny feeling that someone has just done exactly that. I glance around the room, peering into the shadowy corners, but Ana and I are alone.
Strange. I could swear someone was here. Someone touched me.
It was just a dream." -- I mean, probably it was your escaped and unstable ex-girlfriend, but whatever.
"I stare at the ceiling, the flashing light of the smoke alarm taunting me once more. We have no contract. Yet Ana's here. Beside me. What does this mean? How am I supposed to deal with her? Will she abide by my rules?" -- first of all, inanimate objects cannot taunt you. and be fucking glad the smoke detector is blinking. maybe when someone inevitably tries to burn down your building you'll have enough warning to get out. also, YOU TOLD HER SHE DIDN'T NEED TO SIGN THE CONTRACT. THAT WAS YOU. YOUR FAULT. YOURS.
Unable to sleep, Christian gets out of bed in favor of playing pretentious music on his piano. Ana gets up, and wants to talk. Christian would rather have sex. Cue shock. Cue awe. Thankfully, Ana manages to ask him one question.
"'I want to get something straight.' She speaks quietly in my ear.
'Always so eager for information, Miss Steele. What needs straightening out?'
'Us,' she says, and the simple word sounds like a prayer.
'Hmm. What about us?' I pause. Where is she going with this?
'The contract.'
I stop and stare down into her shrewd gaze. Why is she doing this now? My fingers glide down her cheek.
'Well, I think the contract is moot, don't you?'
'Moot?' she says, and her lips soften with the hint of a smile.
'Moot.' I mirror her expression.
. . . . .
The v between her brows is back. 'So, let me be clear. You just want me to follow the rules element of the contract all the time, but no the rest of the contract?'
'Except in the playroom. I want you to follow the spirit of the contract in the playroom, and yes, I want you to follow the rules - all the time. Then I'll know you're safe. And I'll be able to have you anytime I wish,' I add flippantly.
'And if I break the rules?' she asks.
'Then I'll punish you.'
'But won't you need my permission?'
'Yes, I will.'
'And if I say no?' she persists.
Why is she being so willful?
'If you say no, you'll say no. I'll have to find a way to persuade you.' She should know this." -- nope. nooooooope. NOOOOOOOOOPE. Dear Christian: 'NO' DOES NOT MEAN 'PERSUADE ME'.
So, Ana tells Christian she'll need to review the rules. He goes to print them off and when he returns, she's drinking a glass of water. She asks him if the "obedience thing" still stands and he says yes. In return, she rolls her eyes. *gasp* Christian calls her on it and she says that if he wants to punish her, he'll have to catch her first. After a little faux chasing around the counter, Christian still has not captured her. Disclaimer here: there's gonna be a lot of book text. You need to get it straight from the source right now.
"I stalk her around the kitchen island. 'It'll be worse for you if I have to come and get you.'
'That's only if you can catch me, Christian. And right now, I have no intention of letting you catch me.'
Is she serious?
'Anastasia, you may fall and hurt yourself. Which will put you in direct contravention of rule number seven, now six.'
'I have been in danger since I met you, Mr. Grey, rules or no rules.'
'Yes, you have.'
Perhaps this is not a game. Is she trying to tell me something?"
. . . . .
"I frown. 'Anyone would think you didn't want me to catch you.'
'I don't. That's the point. I feel about punishment the way you feel about me touching you.'
And from nowhere the darkness crawls over me, shrouding my skin, leaving an icy trail of despair in its wake.
No. No. I can't bear to be touched. Ever.
'That's how you feel?' It's like she's touched me, her nails leaving white tracks over my chest.
She blinks several times, assessing my reaction, and when she speaks her voice is gentle. 'No. It doesn't affect me quite as much as that, but it gives you an idea.' Her expression is anxious.
Well, hell! This shines a whole different light on our relationship. 'Oh,' I mutter, because I can't think of anything else to say.
She takes a deep breath and approaches me, and when she's standing in front of me she looks up, her eyes burning with apprehension.
'You hate it that much?' I whisper.
This is it. We are really incompatible.
No. I don't want to believe that.
'Well . . . no,' she says, and relief washes through me. 'No,' she continues. 'I feel ambivalent about it. I don't like it, but I don't hate it.'" -- Okay, so I have a lot to say about this. First, I'm sorry for making you read so much of the book. There really was no way for me to accurately portray what was happening otherwise. Moving on. This bothers me a lot. We've all been inside Christian's head for 500 pages now, and we're all very aware how much being touched upsets him (even though we STILL don't know why...). He's all but refused to let Ana touch any part of his body but his dick, and every time she brings it up, he goes into panic mode. We know this. More importantly, ANA knows this. If I'm gonna call out Christian on his emotional manipulation, you'd better believe I'm gonna give Ana hell for it too. YOU DO NOT DO THIS. She starts out saying she feels just as bad about punishment as he does about being touched (and you see his reaction - he's horrified), and backtracks until we arrive at "ambivalent." The definition of ambivalent is being stuck in the middle. Feeling one way about something, but also feeling another way. She's neither here nor there. She doesn't like it, but she doesn't hate it. So no, it doesn't give him any idea about how you feel because the two situations are completely different. You're just telling him you feel like that because you don't want him to punish you. And it's FINE that you don't want to be punished. But jesus, just fucking say no.
You guys fucking belong together.
They talk briefly about how Christian wants to hurt her but won't tell her why because he's afraid she'll run screaming for the hills. So, faced with a dilemma, Ana makes a choice.
"'Show me,' she says.
I don't know what she means.
'Show you?'
'Show me how much it can hurt.'
'What?' I lean back and stare at her in disbelief.
'Punish me. I want to know how bad it can get.'
Oh no. I release her and step out of her reach.
She gazes at me: open, honest, serious. She's offering herself to me once more; mine for the taking, to do with as I wish. I'm stunned. She'd fulfill this need for me? I can't believe it. 'You would try?'
'Yes. I said I would.' Her expression is full of resolve."
She explains that she's confused and trying to work things out. And apparently, the only way to do that is to put herself in a situation that she would likely never be in, ever. He takes her up to the playroom and tells her that after he's shown her how bad it can be, she can make up her own mind. He grabs a belt and tells her to bend over a bench.
"'We're here because you said yes, Anastasia. And you ran from me. I am going to hit you six times, and you will count with me.'"
I'm not going to put the actual belting scene here. It's painful and uncomfortable and upsetting. Instead, we'll start with what happens immediately after.
"She dashes away her tears with the back of her hand. 'This is what you really like? Me, like this?'
. . . . .
Why didn't she ask me to stop? She didn't safe-word. She deserved to be punished. She ran from me. She rolled her eyes. This is what happens when you defy me, baby.
She scowls. Blue eyes wide and bright, filled with hurt and rage and sudden, chilling insight.
Shit. What have I done?
. . . . .
'Well, you are one fucked up son of a bitch,' she snarls.
All the breath leaves my body, and it's like she's whipped me with a belt . . . Fuck!" -- I mean. I hate to say Ana was asking for it, but she literally did ask for it. And she didn't need 6 lashings with a belt to know how fucked up he was. She should have known the second he was like "yes okay let's do it". Or from the moment he tracked her fucking phone 450 pages ago. But he's right. She didn't safe-word. She didn't tell him to stop. Should he have known to stop? Of fucking course. They've talked about how she feels about punishment before. He should have shut this down immediately. But that means ELJ would have to write Christian as a thinking and compassionate person, which we all know is just too much fucking work.
"Now that she knows what's involved, we can move on.
I told her. People like me like inflicting pain.
But only one women who like it.
My sense of unease grows.
Her reaction - the image of her injured, haunted look is back, unwelcome, in my mind's eye. It's unsettling. I am used to making women cry - it's what I do.
But Ana?"
Christian resolves to let her cry it out - much like a toddler, except nothing like a toddler - and insists that when she's done sobbing, they'll talk things out and everything will be fine. As he's on the floor sulking, a thought occurs to him - what if she's not in the house anymore? What if she's left? Thankfully his fear is abated when he hears her crying from outside her bedroom.
"She's in there, crying.
Oh, thank God." -- I feel like this should not bring you relief, but whatever. Do you.
He lets himself in, after grabbing some cream and Advil (how thoughtful) and lays down beside Ana, drawing her into him. She turns and they exchange pleasantries (somehow she ends up apologizing to him????????). Then, in a single sentence, she brings Christian's world crashing to the ground.
"She swallows nervously. 'I don't think I can be everything you want me to be,' she concedes, her eyes wide with heartfelt sincerity.
The world stops.
Fuck.
We're not safe at all.
Grey, make this right.
'You are everything I want you to be.'
She frowns. Her eyes are red-rimmed and she's so pale, the palest I've ever seen her. It's oddly stirring. 'I don't understand,' she says. 'I'm not obedient, and you can be as sure as hell I'm not going to let you do that to me again. And that's what you need - you said so.'
And there it is - her coup de grace. I pushed too far. Now she knows - and all the arguments I had with myself before I embarked on the pursuit of this girl flood back to me. She's not into the lifestyle. How can I corrupt her this way? She's too young, too innocent - too . . . Ana."
He decides it'll never work between them and that he has to let her go. She says she doesn't want to go (of course), and he says he doesn't want that either. Then, in a stunning turn of events that literally every person alive saw coming, she tells Christian that she's fallen in love with him.
"I remember Carrick teaching me to dive. My toes gripping the pool edge as I fell arching into the water - and now I'm falling once more, into the abyss, in slow motion.
There's no way she can feel that about me.
Not me. No!
And I'm choking for air, strangled by her words pressing their momentous weight on my chest. I plunge down and down, the darkness welcoming me. I can't hear them. I can't deal with them. She doesn't know what she's saying, who she's dealing with - what she's dealing with." -- you're being a little bit dramatic, don't you think?
He goes on to telling her that loving him is wrong, and ELJ somehow passes up the opportunity to make Ana say "If loving you is wrong, I don't want to be right." Ana insists that Christian makes her happy, which is interesting because I feel like she's been miserable for 400 of the 510 pages through which I've traveled.
"She blinks, her lashes fluttering over her large, wounded eyes, studying me intently as she searches for the truth."
It's baaaaaaaaaaaack
Since Christian has decided that Ana is not allowed to love him, she figures she should leave - which makes total sense, by the way. But Christian is horrified and doesn't want her to leave, even though we've established three times in the last page that he apparently can't make her happy. Ana gets out of bed and tells Christian she'd like some privacy as she cleans herself up. Once she's in the bathroom, Christian is left alone to ponder her feelings for him. As he's moping, Welch calls with no information on Leila other than the fact that she left her husband, which really isn't news at all.
Ana arrives in the living room, carrying her suitcase. She returns the laptop, phone, and car keys, stating she doesn't want anything to remind her of him. Naturally, Christian takes offense to this ("Are you really trying to wound me?" -- fuck you, Christian, you just beat the shit out of her. let her have this moment to protect her psyche.). She asks Christian for the money that Taylor got for selling her Beetle - you know, the car Christian got rid of without her permission. This, for some inexplicable reason, also offends Christian.
"Money. It always comes down to the fucking money.
. . . . .
Sitting at my desk I call Taylor.
'Good morning, Mr. Grey.'
I ignore his greeting. 'How much did you get for Ana's VW?'
'Twelve thousand dollars, sir.'
'That much?' In spite of my bleak mood, I'm surprised.
'It's a classic,' he says, by way of explanation.
. , , , ,
I hang up and take out my checkbook from my desk drawer. As I do, I remember my conversation with Welch about Leila's fucking asshole of a husband.
It's always about fucking money!
In my anger I double the amount that Taylor got for the death trap and stuff the check into an envelope." -- "Fucking Ana. I fucking hate her. What could I possibly do, short of beating her again, to show her how deep my hatred goes? Yes. I'll give her twenty-five thousand dollars. Take that, bitch." -- SAID NO ONE EVER. I'd also like to take this moment to say that if I have angered anyone in the past, please, feel free to send me twenty-five thousand dollars of hate money.
After a couple attempts to get Ana to stay, Christian finally follows her out to the elevator.
"The elevator doors open and Ana heads straight in. She looks around at me - and for a moment her mask slips, and there it is: my pain reflected on her beautiful face.
No . . . Ana. Don't go.
'Good-bye, Christian.'
'Ana . . . good-bye.'
The doors close and she's gone."
I open at the close.
The chapter (and the book) take a complete turn now, as Ana is pretty much no longer in either. Instead, the remaining 8 pages of this chapter, and the subsequent 36 pages of the book, contain lots of Mopey Christian. In Fifty Shades of Grey, the book ended after Ana left, because it was told from her perspective. But here, ELJ has created another 44 pages of what I'm hoping is plot.
So, after Ana leaves, Christian all but collapses in his foyer, taking particular notice of the paintings on his walls silently mocking him. Because that's what inanimate objects do. They judge.
"She's gone. She's really gone. The best thing that ever happened tome. After she said she'd never leave. She promised me she'd never leave. I close my eyes, shutting out those lifeless, pitying stares, and tip my head back against the wall. Okay, she said it in her sleep - and like the fool I am, I believed her." -- Believed her? You literally just said she said this shit in her sleep? What is there to believe? When I was fifteen, my friend was sleeping over and swears that I asked her to put pancakes in the dryer. Did she? Of course not because she recognizes that people say crazy shit when they're asleep. You didn't tell her what she said, even though she asked numerous times, so she never had the opportunity to confirm or deny her unconscious admission. Instead, you chose to "believe" the words of someone mid-REM. So don't go playing this, "I believed her and she betrayed me" bullshit. It is your fault.
Taylor arrives back at Christian's apartment after driving Ana home. Christian is confused because he's only been sitting in his foyer for 3 paragraphs, which doesn't seem like enough time for Taylor to have made it there and back. Lying there in his agony, which I assume can only look like this:
Christian decides to take a shower, hoping to wash away the pain.
"As I stand I touch the wooden table that dominates the foyer, my fingers absentmindedly tracing its delicate marquetry. I'd have liked to fuck Miss Steele over this. I close my eyes, imagining her sprawled across this table, her head held back, chin up, mouth open in ecstasy, and her luscious hair pooling over the edge. Shit, it makes me hard just thinking about it." -- this really isn't the time, Christian.
Christian gets out of the shower, melancholy as ever. As he's getting dressed, he sees a small box on his pillow. Opening it, he finds a model glider with a note from Ana saying it reminded her of a happy time.
"Some long-lost, ugly memory stirs, trying to sink its teeth into the here and now. No. That is not a place I want my mind to return to. I get up, tossing the box onto the bed, and dress hurriedly. When I'm finished I grab the box and the note and head for my study. I will handle this better from my seat of power."
Sitting at his "Seat of Power", Christian's thoughts turn to Leila, and where the hell she is. Soon, those thoughts turn to Leila in the playroom. And finally, we arrive at Ana. Again.
"Lord, that was so much fun - the equivalent of pulling her pigtails in the playground. Ana in pigtails . . . I shut down that thought immediately. I don't want to go there, our first bath. And all I'm left with is the thought that I won't see her again."
"Christ, that was fun: her girlish excitement during the flight, the squealing, and afterward, our kiss. It was my first attempt at more. It's extraordinary that over such a short time I have collected so many happy memories.
The pain surfaces once more - nagging, aching, reminding me of all that I've lost."
After this bout of pouting, Christian finishes building the glider and Elena calls. He doesn't want to talk to her because he doesn't want to admit that things are over. He hangs up, and goes to find food.
"I examine the contents of my fridge.
Nothing appeals.
In the cupboard I find a bag of pretzels. I open them and eat one after the other as I walk to the window. Outside, night has fallen; lights twinkle and wink through the pouring rain. The world moves on.
Move on, Grey.
Move on."
36 pages left.
No comments:
Post a Comment