Author: JennyTrout

Yes, I’ve changed the blog. I’ve received a lot of complaints about this. Please be patient while I figure something else out. I rather like this format, but if it’s going to mess with everyone, I’ll have to find a new one, and that might take me a minute or a day or a week.

My tweep @Zionastar wanted to share this with you all:

Also, check out the really disturbing stuff Barbie is getting up to these days:

Tweep @Bindibo0 shared this picture, which certainly heralds the coming apocalypse:

If you can’t see it clearly, that’s a window decal that says “Laters, Baby.” First, I was like, “It’s awesome that someone put words from a book on their car,” and then I was all, “But people put ‘Not all who wander are lost’ bumperstickers on all the time, so fuck your book nerd pride, this is a crisis.” I guess I should be grateful that the etsy seller who made the decal didn’t put a possessive apostrophe in it, so thank god for small miracles (“LAAAANAAAAAAA! I said, thank god for small miracles.”). Other things that are good about this sticker: it’s on a Hyundai, so I think it’s safe to say that no sadistic billionaire has gotten to this poor woman yet.

Wasn’t that fun? Well, don’t get used to it. The fun stops here, because now we have to read the actual book, and let me tell you, things were left a mess in the last chapter. Ana ran off to the bathroom to cry and get som space from Christian. Wanna guess how that worked out?

“Hey,” Christian’s says gently as he pulls me into his arms, “please don’t cry, Ana, please,” he begs. He’s on the bathroom floor, and I am in his lap.

So… how is that “needing space” thing working out for you? And by the way, I didn’t mistype there. That’s how the actual first sentence reads on the page.

Christian holds Ana while she cries, then carries her to bed, where he continues to give her the space and time to think that she needs. Just kidding, he turns into the plant from Little Shop of Horrors.

Christian is wrapped around me like a vine. He grumbles in his sleep as I slip out of his arms, but he doesn’t wake.

Ana goes for juice and headache pills, then goes to the window, where she thinks about how she has a lot of stuff to think about. That’s another of my least favorite aspects of this book. She never just thinks about anything. First, she has to think about how she needs to think about it. But she does eventually get around to thinking about what she thinks she needs to think about:

Marriage. It’s almost unbelievable and completely unexpected.

Unless you’ve read the Twilight series, in which case you were able to set your watch by his proposal.

I look like his mother. This wounds me deeply, and the air leaves my lungs in a rush. We all look like his mom.

How the hell do I move on from the disclosure of that little secret? No wonder he didn’t want to tell me. But certainly he can’t remember much of his mother. I wonder once more if I should talk to Dr. Flynn. Would Christian let me? Perhaps he could fill in the gaps.

That’s a great idea. I think it’s really a marker of a solid, trusting relationship if you have to get answers for your partner’s behavior from a medical professional instead of just talking directly to said partner. That’s why nearly every romantic comedy features a scene of Katherine Heigl talking to Gerard Butler’s therapist.

The Ugly Truth is that this movie sucks 100 balls.

And what’s the BFD about her looking like Chrisitan’s mom? I look a lot like my husband’s mom. And his sister. And him. And nobody thinks that’s creepy.

Okay, now I see it. Forget I said anything.

The peaceful tranquility is shattered by a visceral, primeval cry that makes every single hair on my body stand to attention. Christian! Holy fuck – what’s happened? I am on my feet, running back to the bedroom before the echoes of that horrible sound have died away, my heart thumping with fear.

 What happened is, Christian woke up when you left the room, then waited a little while, until it seemed just the right time to scream and draw you back into his manipulations. Because it’s dramatic, and men like Christian invent drama to keep women tied to them.

Even assuming Christian is really having a night terror, I love the timing of it. Ana is thinking, “Gosh, could I actually live here and be married to him? What’s it going to be like?” and then suddenly she hears the Doom scream and it doesn’t strike her as a bad sign.

I flip one of the light switches, and Christian’s bedside light comes to life.

According to Pixar, that can totally happen.

The amount of needless explanation for everyday actions and common phrases is starting to wear me down. Seriously, E.L., we all know what happens when you flip a light switch. Why not just say, “I switch on Christian’s bedside lamp?” We don’t need some florid metaphor about what happens to a lamp when you turn it on, just like we didn’t need context clues to know what “overflowing” meant in the last chapter. I get describing things like the sound of a car engine (“He turned the key and the engine roared to life,” for example) or the way light looks in a room (for instance, saying light flooded a room or that a lamp glows with soft golden light), but seriously? You’re going to walk us poetically through the steps of turning on a lamp when you’ve got this night terror situation already hooking the reader?

He’s tossing and turning, writhing in agony. No! He cries out again, and the eerie, devastating sound lances through me anew.

Shit – a nightmare!

Really? Are you sure he’s not building a boat? Learning to read Greek? Crafting hand-dipped candles? NO SHIT HE’S HAVING A NIGHTMARE.

Also, I would like to just have you guys imagine that the cry he’s making is the velociraptor impression D-Rock made in the video I posted yesterday. Because it makes this whole thing so much funnier.

Ana shakes Christian awake, and he’s not needy, like, at all:

“You left, you left, you must have left,” he mumbles – his wide-eyed star become accusatory – and he looks so lost, it wrenches at my heart. Poor Fifty.

“I’m here.” I sit down on the bed beside him. “I’m here,” I murmur softly in an effort to reassure him. I reach out to place my palm on the side of his face, trying to soothe him.

If she wasn’t creeped about about looking like his mom before, she definitely will be now, let me tell you. Especially if this whole “Mommy, I had a bad dream” thing plays out more than once.

 “You’re here. Oh, thank God.” He reaches for me, and grabbing me tightly, he pulls me down on the bed beside him.

How did he know she was gone in the first place, if he was asleep? Hey, caught you in your lie, Mr. Grey. Of course, I’m probably interpreting this entirely differently than the author intended. I’m sure that this scene is intended to show the reader how attuned to Ana that Chedward is, that even when he’s sleeping, he knows where she is. Which would make me seriously reconsider that whole marriage proposal thing. I mean, is he just marrying her because she helps him sleep better? Get one of those Sleep Number beds from the tv and a body pillow and suck it up, Chedward.

Christian starts getting gropey, and of course Ana is completely into the sexxors, until she remembers that he’s boning her because she looks like his mom:

He wants me, but his words from earlier choose this moment to come back and haunt me, what he said about his mother. And it’s like a bucket of cold water on my libido. Fuck. I can’t do this. Not now.

So, they stop having sex, because Ana asks to stop.

“Christian… Stop. I can’t do this,” I whisper urgently against his mouth, my hands pushing on his upper arms.

“What? What’s wrong?” he murmurs and starts kissing my neck, running the tip of his tongue lightly down my throat. Oh…

What’s wrong is literally everything in this book. But at the moment, what’s wrong is that Ana is telling you to stop, she doesn’t want to have sex, but you’re going to keep pushing her:

“No, please. I can’t do this, not now. I need some time, please.”

“Oh, Ana, don’t overthink this,” he whispers as he nips my earlobe.

Yeah, don’t overthink it, Ana. Don’t be put off by the fact that in a single day you have had a gun pointed at you because of me, that I provided pretty intimate care for my ex-girlfriend in your apartment and then got jealous because while I was doing that you were with an old friend, that I asked you to marry me because I’m afraid you might go spend the night at your apartment for once, that we’ve been together a couple weeks and I want you to move in, and that I can’t give you space for five fucking minutes to use the bathroom alone, and now I’m telling you that you really want to have sex when you don’t. Just give in, baby, and you can maybe retreat into your head for five minutes while I’m pounding you. Just don’t, you know, go far, because I can’t live without you.

“Ah!” I gasp, feeling it in my groin, and my body bows, betraying me. This is is so confusing.

Not really. It’s called coerced consent, and it’s a very common form of rape.

But of course, it’s the most scorching hot, sexy rape you’ve ever read, and Ana loves every minute of it, because that’s the kind of book this is.

I’m not saying I don’t like to read the occasional dub-con story. I like an old school historical rapemance as much as the next person. Hell, I’ve written dub-con. I don’t really have a problem with people enjoying rape-fantasy, because the mind, as a sex organ, is all kinds of interesting and many times will arouse us with things we fear. See also, the time I fantasized about a gang bang with the The Gentlemen from Buffy. But I don’t enjoy this particular dub-con, because there is no element of fantasy to it. E.L. James has (unintentionally, I firmly believe) written a shockingly realistic account of an abusive relationship. Getting hot to this isn’t the same thing as reading, say, a Catherine Coulter wedding night rape scene, where you know the hero is going to feel super bad about his actions later, even though his medieval culture and upbringing tells him that it was totally cool of him to force himself on the heroine. Getting hot to this is like jilling off to The Accused, because Christian Grey is never going to stop manipulating Ana, and he’s not going to think he was wrong for forcing himself on her here. He won’t even consider it forcing himself on her, and neither will Ana. And that, friends, is my problem with this kind of rape-fantasy. When you don’t realize it’s rape, when the author is justifying why it’s not rape, or why the rape is okay, it’s not a rape-fantasy. It’s just a plain old rape scene.

In this particular scene, though, at least we’re spared, “Oh, Ana, what you do to me,” or whatever the fuck it is that Chedward is always saying while they bone. In this scene, that’s all turned on its head:

Oh, what I can do to him!

See, completely different.

“Don’t give me a chance to think, Christian. I want you, too.” 

This is the consent she gives. “Okay, we’ll do this, but only if you don’t let me remember why I didn’t want to.” Swoon.

So, they have sex, Chedward says she’s going to “unman” him again (so maybe it is a Catherine Coulter scene after all), and this time, Ana gets to be on top:

I grab his hands and start to move, reveling in the fullness of my possession, reveling in his reaction, watching him unravel beneath me. I feel like a goddess. I lean down and kiss his chin, running my teeth along his stubbled jaw. He tastes delicious. He clasps my hips and steadies my rhythm, slow and easy.

That’s all like, 100% copy-pasted from all the other sex scenes. Jesus, I know that sex in a monogamous relationship can get stale, but that got repetitive really quickly. And I’ve got a whole ‘nother book to go. I’ll be truly shocked if the sex scenes in book three don’t just read like, “He starts to move, really move, I unravel, my inner goddess does something, teeth, stubble, blazing eyes, yadda yadda are you done masturbating yet?”

Ana can’t orgasm because, surprise, she’s not entirely into the sex, owing to all the mental torture he’s put her through so far that day. So, you know what happens next. Christian just finishes, tells her thanks for the sex, and promises he’ll make it up to her with some oral next time, when she’s more in the mood.

Sorry, I mixed up my copies there for a second, I was reading BIZARRO Shades Darker. What actually happens is this:

“Come on baby, I need this. Give it to me.”

Look, I’m no sex expert… sexpert… exsexpatriot… but I’m almost completely sure that pressuring someone into orgasm doesn’t work. Unless they really get off on stress.

Or unless it’s in this shitty, shitty book:

And I explode, my body a slave to his, and wrap myself around him, clinging to him like a vine as he cries out my name, and climaxes with me, then collapses, his full weight pressing me into the mattress.

Oh yeah, before I have to correct it in the comments, they did switch positions, so he was on top at the end. That’s not a mistake.

Hey, Ana, remember how you were like, “Oh, Leila is so pathetic, I’m glad I’m not like pathetic, stupid, awful, pathetic Leila,” about a chapter ago? You just had sex with Christian Grey because he wanted you to, and you had an orgasm because he told you to. That’s the equivalent of falling on the ground in supplication the way Leila did. It might be a little worse. But of course, we’re not supposed to see it that way. Leila is a crazy whore, and Ana is strong, bright, and interesting, so she’s choosing to react this way.

And enough with the vines already. This isn’t fucking Tarzan.

After their “lovemaking” (and yes, that’s actually how Ana refers to it, please don’t hang yourself), Ana asks him about his nightmare. The nightmare was about his mother’s pimp putting cigarettes out on him.

“It’s the pain I remember. That’s what gives me nightmares. That, and the fact that she did nothing to stop him.”

Interesting aside, did you know you can’t actually remember pain? But that the memory of pain can be more damaging than the actual pain you experience? Google it, there’s a lot of interesting stuff out there. I’m not saying this to point out anything wrong with the book, I just think it’s a really bizarre thing.

Oh no. This is unbearable. I tighten my grip around him, my legs and arms holding him to me, and I try not to let my despair choke me. How could anyone treat a child like that? He raises his head and pins me with his intense gray gaze.

“You’re not like her. Don’t ever think that. Please.”

Christian goes on to talk about his mom being dead, and him being hungry, and I was kind of hoping he’d say he ate parts of his mom’s dead body, but instead he talks about the pimp beating him. But it’s not the pimp that Christian hates. I’m finding it kind of strange that his hatred of his mom causes him to seek out women who look like her so he can beat them. It seems like he should be into finding women who look like his mom and then letting other people beat them while he does nothing to stop it. He cut out the middle man, and I’m all for efficiency, but a lot of his anger toward his mom doesn’t wash, especially considering he’s been going through therapy. It seems like any therapist worth anything would have told Christian that he and his mother were both victims of the same abuser, the pimp, that his mother was not only an addict but a woman being controlled by a violent man, and that while in a perfect world she should have been able to protect him, she just couldn’t in those terrible circumstances.

“She didn’t love me. I didn’t love me. The only touch I knew was… harsh. It stemmed from there. Flynn explains it better than I can.”

Wait, his therapist is telling him that his mother didn’t love him? I’m confused here, because it seems like the good memories he does have, like of a mom baking him a birthday cake, wouldn’t have happened if his mom didn’t love him, at least a little bit. A therapist probably would have touched on that. And also, that whole, “your mom was a victim of your abuser, too,” thing.

“You  are so precious to me, Ana. I was serious about marrying you. We can get to know each other then. I can look after you. You can look after me. We can have kids if you want. I will lay my world at your feet, Anastasia. I want you, body and soul, forever. Please think about it.”

Yeah, you guys should definitely bring a child into this. You both have your shit entirely together, so what could possibly go wrong?

Ana tells Christian she’ll think about, and then she says she wants to talk to Dr. Flynn. Christian says:

“Anything for you, baby. Anything. When would you like to see him?”

So, anything for you except the right to refuse sex, the right to not orgasm, the right to have space, the right to not be pressured into things, but anything. Anything, baby.

This guy. This fucking guy.

And just to prove that Ana is totally not some pathetic, mind-controlled sexbot like Leila is?

He curls his arms around me, his front to my back, and nuzzles my neck. “I love you, Ana Steele, and I want you by my side, always,” he murmurs as he kisses my neck. “Now go to sleep.”

I close my eyes.

See? Not mind controlled at all.

In the morning, she wakes up in a situation oddly similar to something we’ve already read. Twice.

I feel cloudy, disconnected from my leaden limbs, and Christian is wrapped around me like ivy.

I guess Ana and Christian have a relationship not unlike that of Dr. Pinder-Schloss and the man eating plant in The Addams Family.

We’re getting the way-back machine for this one, folks.

Ana is late for work, and flustered, so I’m going to assume that she just didn’t have time to make any damn sense in this paragraph:

I check my clothes – black slacks, black shirt – all a bit Mrs. R, but I don’t have a second to change my mind. I hastily don black bra and panties, conscious that he’s watching my every move. It’s… unnerving. The panties and bra will do.

Please, if you can explain to me what the hell she’s saying in that paragraph, share it with the class. I get that she thinks her clothes are like Mrs. Robinson’s. I don’t get why she’s putting on her bra and panties when it sounds like she’s already dressed. Or maybe she’s not going to get dressed at all, maybe that’s why she says “The panties and bra will do,” because she’s not going to wear anything else. In fact, for the rest of the scene, she just puts on a watch and a pair of shoes, and then says it will “do” again. Is Ana getting dressed today?

One thing is certain, and that is that Christian will not be getting dressed today. In fact, he wants Ana to skip work to have sex with him, but that’s a no go, so he tells her to have Taylor drive her. The danger with Leila is over, but Christian is afraid Ana won’t be able to find a parking spot and punch the clock on time, so she should just have his manservant ferry her there or something. I’m telling you this so that you are aware that the brand new car that he absolutely had to buy Ana still has not been driven one fucking time yet. Ana hasn’t missed that point, either, but she agrees with Christian:

But he’s right, of course – it will be quicker with Taylor.

Bull fucking shit it will be. Every time I’ve thought of Taylor while I was in the shower, he had staying power. Also, all of my fantasies start out with him murdering Christian Grey in cold blood, and he comes to me still dripping with gore. We consumate our love on the back of a motorcycle, running from the cops.

Sorry, what?

Ana wonders if something is wrong, because Christian doesn’t usually stay in bed all day, but he informs her that he’s going to, because he can.

I shake my head at him. “Laters, baby.” I blow him a kiss, and I am out the door.

OMG, GUYS, THIS TIME ANA WAS THE ONE WHO SAID “LATERS, BABY!”

The fact that there isn’t an instance of irony in the lyric is what makes the song itself ironic.

Because Ana is late, Taylor drives the way he drives in my sex dreams about him, which 1) breaks the rule about keeping Ana safe, and 2) terrifies Ana. So, good job, Taylor!

I remember Christian telling me he drove tanks; maybe he drives for NASCAR, too.

You see a lot of tanks in NASCAR, Ana? She’s talking about Taylor driving tanks, by the way, not Christian, not that you would be able to tell thanks to that wonk pronoun referral. Whatever, I’m just happy she didn’t say, “maybe he drives for Formula One, too.”

Ana gets to work fifteen minutes late. Which, you know, shit happens, but isn’t this her third week? It really doesn’t matter, because she’s not going to be in this job for long. I’m not saying that because I’ve read the whole book, I’m saying that because if I had an employee who pulled all the shit she’s going to pull on this day, I would fire them. Immediately. Let’s start by keeping a running tally, and we’ll add to it every time she does something that should get her reprimanded by her boss. The clock starts with:

1. Fifteen minutes late to work.

When Ana gets to her desk, Jack is in no mood:

“What time do you call this?” he snaps.

 “I’m sorry, I overslept.” I flush crimson.

 “Don’t let it happen again. Fix me some coffee, and then I need you to do some letters. Jump to it,” he shouts, making me flinch.

 Why is he so mad? What’s his problem? What have I done?

You were fifteen minutes late to work. In a lot of jobs, being on-time is the same thing as being fifteen minutes late. And you’ve only worked there for two weeks. Plus, your boss knows that your boyfriend is the most powerful man in the city, so maybe he thinks you’re late because you don’t give a shit and you don’t really need your job. It’s unfair, but I would be giving  you the side eye, if I were him.

 Maybe I should have ditched. I could be… well, doing something hot with Christian, or having breakfast with him, or just talking – that would be novel.

Yeah, because you guys never talk. It’s not like you spent the entire last chapter crying and talking and talking and crying. Seriously, I wrote a book once where my editor sent it back with a tersely worded, “NO CRYING” post it on the first page (in ye olden days when physical manuscripts were mailed back and forth), and it didn’t have nearly as much crying and talking as just the previous chapter of this book.

Jack gives Ana a handwritten letter he wants typed up. Because this book is set in the 1960’s, when people didn’t have computers and iPads and shit. Sorry, but if Jack wanted Ana to take a letter, he would probably just dictate it to her, or type one up himself and ask her to polish it. But whatever, Ana doesn’t do it, anyway:

It is with some relief that I finally sit down at my desk. I take a sip of tea as I wait for my computer to boot up. I check my emails.

1. Fifteen minutes late to work.
2. Checks personal emails instead of working.

And it’s not like she just “checks” her emails. She emails back and forth with Christian for a while, with no mention of anything happening between sending and receipt of emails. For example, the first email she sends has a time stamp of 09:27, and the reply she receives comes at 09:32. Then she responds again at 09:35, and gets an answer back at 09:40. So, for like ten minutes, all she’s doing is email chatting. Keep this in mind for later, when Ana can’t figure out why her boss is furious with her.

As for the content of the emails, Christian sends an email to her work account that says:

Please use your BlackBerry.

So, Ana responds, via her work account, of course:

My boss is mad.

I blame you for keeping me up late with your… shenanigans.

You should be ashamed of yourself.

So, keeping in mind that he’s already told her to use her BlackBerry, and we know the account is monitored (because apparently SIP, even though it’s a small company that was about to go under before Christian purchased it, has enough payroll to throw around to have staff members able to monitor literally every email on the company server), Christian’s response is, in part:

But I like keeping you up late 😉

Please use your BlackBerry.

Oh, and marry me, please.

Every email is signed with an automatic signature listing his full name and job title, but he’ll go ahead and talk about sex and marriage on an email account he knows is monitored.

Ana emails back that she wants to talk to his shrink (despite him continually reminding her that she has an email account she can use that isn’t monitored, although I’m not sure why he doesn’t just stop emailing her at that address), and he gets mad:

Anastasia, if you’re going to start discussing Dr. Flynn, then USE YOUR BLACKBERRY.

 This is not a request.

 Christian Grey,

Now Pissed CEO, Grey Enterprises Holdings, Inc.

You know what’s funny about this whole thing? Ana never once mentioned the shrink by name. Pretty much all the info leaks Christian is worried about are coming straight from him. And again, if he was going to use the good doctor’s name, why didn’t he just send that email to the BlackBerry on his own?

Oh shit. Now he’s mad at me, too. Well, he can stew for all I care. I take my BlackBerry out of my purse and eye it with skepticism. As I do, it starts ringing. Can’t he leave me alone?

Dude, you’re the one who was emailing back and forth with him, it’s not like he was just pelting you with emails you were trying to ignore. Also, lol at Ana eyeing the BlackBerry with skepticism. She’s used it before. Also, I don’t know if this is true for everyone (because I have an Android phone now), but when I had a BlackBerry, it wasn’t like I had a special, BlackBerry-only email account that I could only access from the BlackBerry. I just had a personal email account linked to my device. Why doesn’t she just go into that email account on her computer?

It’s not Christian, but Jose who is calling her. Since we haven’t seen Jose for a while, I want to remind you that Jose has an accent mark in his name that I haven’t figured out how to reproduce in Blogger’s compose mode. So, don’t get up in arms about Jose’s missing accent mark and blame E.L. for it.

“Jose! How are you?” Oh, it’s good to hear his voice.

“I’m fine, Ana. Look, are you still seeing that Grey guy?”

“Er – yes… Why?” Where is he going with this?

I’m wondering that, myself, because didn’t he just see them last Thursday? I would be a little offended if my friends saw me out with my boyfriend on Thursday, and then two weeks later be like, “Are you still with that guy?”

On the other hand, it’s kind of nice that he checks, because, as he points out, Christian did buy all those photos of Ana. I’m not sure I would want to sell my friend’s ex a bunch of huge, wall-sized photos of them.

“Well, he’s bought all your photos, and I thought I could deliver them up to Seattle. The exhibition closes Thursday, so I could bring them up Friday evening and drop them off, you know. And maybe we could catch a drink or something. Actually, I was hoping for a place to crash, too.”

“Jose, that’s cool. Yeah, I’m sure we could work something out. Let me talk to Christian and call you back, okay?”

Yeah, I see this going really well, Ana. Just tell Christian that you want Jose, the guy he hates and fears most in this world because Jose has a penis and dared to dream of using it near you, wants to come and get drunk and spend the night. This is going to go down flawlessly.

Ana and Jose hang up, and Ana thinks:

Holy cow. I haven’t seen or heard from Jose since his show. I didn’t even ask him how it went or if he sold any more pictures. Some friend I am. 

No shit. That’s what I’ve been saying. Within seconds of hanging up the phone, Ana remembers what reality she’s currently operating in:

So, I could spend the evening with Jose on Friday. How will Christian like that? I become aware that I am biting my lip till it hurst. Oh, that man has double standards. He can – I shudder at the thought – bathe his batshit ex-lover, but I will probably get a truckload of grief for wanting to have a drink with Jose. How am I going to handle this?

While Ana sits there and mulls over her personal problems, there’s the small matter of a letter she’s supposed to be typing up:

“Ana!” Jack pulls me abruptly out of my reverie. Is he still mad? “Where’s that letter?”

 “Er – coming.” Shit. What is eating him?

Let’s take a look:

1. Fifteen minutes late to work.
2. Checks personal emails instead of working.
3. Takes a personal call instead of working.

Seriously, it’s been like a half hour. I was a secretary, okay? It doesn’t take that damn long to just type up a letter. So, Ana gets to work, and brings the letter to Jack:

“I don’t know what you’re doing out there, but I pay you to work,” he barks.

“I’m aware of that, Jack,” I mutter apologetically. I feel a slow flush creep up my skin.

“This is full of mistakes,” he snaps. “Do it again.”

Fuck. He’s beginning to sound like someone I know, but rudeness from Christian I can tolerate. Jack is beginning to piss me off.

He’s beginning to piss you off? Are you fucking kidding me? You got to work fifteen minutes late, didn’t bother to start working until like, an hour past start time, and then you only started working because your boss got harsh with you, and he is starting to piss you off? Bitch, there are a lot of people in this country who need jobs. Maybe act like you want yours.

Holy fuck. He’s being unbearable. I sit back down at my desk, hastily redo his letter, which had two mistakes in it, and check it thoroughly before printing. Now it’s perfect.

Hey, Whiney McShutup, maybe you should have checked it thoroughly for errors the first time. Since, you know, that’s your job and all.

Ana takes the letter back to Jack, and gets offended when he repeats his earlier instructions to her:

“Photocopy it, file the original, and mail out to all authors. Understand?”

“Yes.” I am not an idiot. “Jack, is there something wrong?” 

1.  Fifteen minutes late to work.
2. Checks personal emails instead of working.
3. Takes a personal call instead of working.
4. Half-asses a simple typing job.

No, I don’t see what the problem could possibly be. Ana, being a much better psychiatrist than Dr. Flynn, has an idea:

Perhaps he, too, suffers from a personality disorder. Sheesh, I’m surrounded by them.

You’re the common denominator here, Ana, so maybe don’t sling diagnoses around like confetti, unless you want to end up hitting yourself with some.

We get a half paragraph about Ana’s struggles with the copier, and I’m so over reading about that. Sorry, Ana, I have done my time working in the Xerox mines, I will not come along with you on this journey. When she gets back to her desk, she takes another personal call, bringing the tally to five:

1. Fifteen minutes late to work.
2. Checks personal emails instead of working.
3. Takes a personal call instead of working.
4. Half-asses a simple typing job.
5. Takes another personal call.

Five, ah ah ah. Five reasons Jen would fire Ana!

It’s Ethan. He needs to pick up Ana’s keys again, and he wants to know if she wants to grab a coffee. She tells him she doesn’t have time:

“Not today. I was late getting in, and my boss is like an angry bear with a sore head and  poison ivy up his ass.”

She also calls him “‘Nasty and ugly,'” which sounds terribly clever, until she looks up and sees Jack watching her from his office. I hope he can’t lip read. No, fuck that, I hope he can. I hope his major in college was in Deaf education and he is a fucking master lip reading teacher. Ethan shows up for the keys, and since half a page has gone by without any mention of Christian, Ethan brings him up, mentioning that Ana has “‘got it bad,'” and Ana thinks:

That’s not the half of it, and in that moment I realize, I have it more than bad. I have it for life.

I bet that’s a similar moment to coming to grips with having a disease.

When Ana gets back to her desk, Jack is pissed, because once again she wasn’t, you know. Working.

“Where have you been?” Jack is suddenly looming over me.

“I had some business to attend to in Reception.” He is really getting on my nerves. 

So, the moral of this story is don’t hire Anastasia Rose Steele if you expect her to actually do her job:

1. Fifteen minutes late to work.
2. Checks personal email instead of working.
3. Takes a personal call instead of working.
4. Half-asses a simple typing job.
5. Takes another personal call.
6. Friend stops by the office.

Jack sends Ana to get his lunch, so she’s immediately right back on her BlackBerry, and what does she find, but yet another email from Christian, reminding her (and the reader) of shit that has already been drummed through our heads over and over again:

Please use discretion… your work e-mails are monitored.

HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO TELL YOU THIS?

Yes. Shouty capitals as you say. USE YOUR BLACKBERRY.

Dr. Flynn can see us tomorrow evening.

“Hey, use discretion when emailing, especially about my personal life, but let me name my therapist again in yet another email.” And thus did the blind lead the stupid through the valley of reader frustration, because at this point I suspect even fans of the series were saying, “Ugh, again with this email thing?”

Christian also sent her another email, because literally two hours went by since she had last emailed him, and he was worried. She has a job, Christian. Surely someone who built a multi-billion dollar empire by the age of twenty-seven is familiar with the concept of being busy at work?

Or not, because when Ana calls him, his assistant puts her right through, as per Christian’s orders. Christian tells Ana:

“You’re normally so quick at responding to my emails. After what I told you yesterday, I was worried,” he says quietly, and then he’s talking to someone in his office.

So, no emails about personal stuff, but he’ll talk about it in front of his employees. No big. And let me stress once more, Ana is at work, at her job, which is not, despite what we’ve been shown in the narrative, just sitting on her ass and sending flirty emails. After an unbearable round of “no, you hang up,” (don’t ask if I’m serious, because I can really only wish I was joking about that part), Christian says:

“You’re biting your lip.”

Shit, he’s right. How does he know?

From what we already know about Mr. Grey, he’s probably just standing outside the deli Ana is getting Jack’s lunch from, creepily watching her. And speaking of Jack, when Ana gets back, he is still in no mood, so she decides to confront him:

“You seem kind of out of sorts today. Have I done something to offend you?”

He blinks at me momentarily. “I don’t think I’m in the mood to list your misdemeanors right now. I’m busy.” He continues to stare at his computer screen, effectively dismissing me.

Whoa… what have I done?

Duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuude.

 How I wish I could make this happen with just the power of my mind.

Ana goes to Starbucks for lunch. Some might say this is because she’s anorexic, but remember how many calories are in Starbucks’s overpriced crap. This is probably the highest calorie count she’s ever had for lunch. Remember, though, that she told Ethan she wouldn’t have time to grab a cup of coffee with him, and then she goes to Starbucks? That’s cold, Ana. I hope Ethan walks by and sees you there, sipping your latte.

In Ana’s defense, it would be really hard to sit there with Ethan and think of nothing but Christian, which is what she really wants to do on her lunch hour. Oh, shit, no it wouldn’t be. She went to the bar with Ethan the night before and all she did was think about Christian, so his company is clearly not a hindrance to Ana’s obsession.

My mind drifts. Christian the sadist. Christian the submissive. Christian the untouchable. Christian’s Oedipal impulses. Christian bathing Leila. I groan and close my eyes while that last image haunts me.

Can I really marry this man? He’s so much to take in. He’s complex and difficult, but deep down I know I don’t want to leave him despite all his issues. I could never leave him. I love him. It would be like cutting off my right arm.

Let us all now remember the timeline of this book, and the fact that she and Christian have been dating for like a month, a week of which they were broken up.

I ask you, dear reader, why do we have to suffer through this introspective bullshit? We all know she’s going to marry him, anyway, so why punish us with all this, “Will I? Won’t I?” crap? It’s like Xander and Anya in season 6 of Buffy.

 How I wish D’Hoffryn would show up and deal with Ana.

 Looking back on my life before Christian, it’s as if everything was in black and white, like Jose’s pictures. Now my whole world is in rich, bright, saturated color. I am soaring in a beam of dazzling light, Christian’s dazzling light I am still Icarus, flying too close to his sun. I snort to myself. Flying with Christian – who can resist a man who can fly?

You obviously can’t resist a metaphor, that’s pretty fucking clear. Notice how she manages to make a dig at her friend’s art while congratulating herself on her new, better friend. And way to define your entire life by one person. What if his glider crashes? Everything goes back to black and white and darkness and being… Daedalus? I guess, would be the opposite of Icarus? I’m so confused by all these metaphors. But the point is, we have reached the moment in the “romance” where the best our hero and heroine can hope for is to die together. That’s the best possible outcome here, for them to be consumed in a fireball.

Oh, and lest I forget:

It’s DAZZLE TIME.

I have to share with you, that when I tried to put the dazzle .gif there, I accidentally posted the Bristol Stool Chart instead, and for a second I thought, “Would anyone notice the difference, if I just left that there?” And I laughed and laughed, heartily, alone, in my office. Just me and my office plant. Think about that the next time you need a good cry.

Ana is still thinking about Christian, and whether she should “leave him” or stay with him:

And it strikes me like a thunderbolt – that’s what he needs from me, what he’s entitled to – unconditional love. He never received it from the crack whore – it’s what he needs.

First of all, no one is entitled to unconditional love, unless you belong to one of those religions where God loves you unconditionally no matter what you do. But we’re working with physical reality here, and in our physical reality, without any metaphysical nonsense muddying our waters, no one is entitled to unconditional love. No one is actually entitled to anything, for that matter. Entitlement is an artificial construct. Second, how does Ana know if Chedward’s mom gave him unconditional love or not? She was a victim in an abusive situation. She didn’t act the way she probably should have, but no one can prove that she didn’t love her son. To look at the situation and say, “Gosh, she was on drugs and a hooker, so she had no capacity for love,” is incredibly insulting. I guess I can understand a twenty-two year old thinking like that, but this book was written about a twenty-two year old, not by a twenty-two year old. A grown ass woman with children should fucking know better than to assume other mothers don’t love their children enough because of the way they respond to shitty, emotionally destructive circumstances. And third, Ana is calling Christian’s mom “the crack whore” now? I get it, it’s how they were introduced, but come the fuck on. You never met the woman, so get off your high horse. You were a prostitute, too, once, Ana. You sold the right to whip your hiney to a guy, and he didn’t pay you cash for it, but you got a lot of expensive gifts in return. And you filed paperwork on it. Judge not, lest I judge the fuck out of you.

I’ve seen the weighty evidence of his goodness – his charity work, his business ethics, his generosity – and yet he doesn’t see it in himself.

Let’s talk about his business ethics, a second. His business ethics include buying any company his girlfriend works for, meaning he has a little spy already planted in the office. His charity work includes not wanting Ana to donate money to his father’s charity, because he wants to win a private battle with her. And his generosity seems to lie in buying a lot of toys for the women he’s fucking. Oh, and giving away your things to his ex-girlfriend:

I wonder which clothes he gave her. I hope it wasn’t the plum dress. I liked that.

And that was Kate’s dress, wasn’t it?

I want to be all things to this man, his Alpha and his Omega and everything in between, because he is all things to me.

I hope Flynn will have the answers, and maybe then I can say yes. Christian and I can find our own slice of heaven close to the sun.

Yes. You should get as close to the sun as possible. Christian should invest all his money in space technology and you guys should make the sun your honeymoon destination.

Of course, while Ana is dreaming of her place in the sun in bright, dazzling, saturated color, she’s on her lunch break, which was supposed to be forty-five minutes:

I gaze out at bustling, lunchtime Seattle. Mrs. Christian Grey – who would have thought? I glance at my watch. Shit! I leap up from my seat and dash to the door – a whole hour of just sitting – where did the time go? Jack is going to go ballistic.

So…

1. Fifteen minutes late to work.
2. Checks personal email instead of working.
3. Takes a personal call instead of working.
4. Half-asses a simple typing job.
5. Takes another personal call.
6. Friend stops by the office.
7. Late from lunch.

When Ana gets back, she lies to Jack and says that she was in the basement photocopying. Photocopying what? He’s your boss, if he didn’t tell you to photocopy something, you wouldn’t have been down there. But Jack lets it slide, and tells Ana to print out his itinerary for New York. I’m thinking he had better do that himself, if he wants it done. Ana mentally calls him a bastard, because HOW VERY DARE her boss ask her to do her job! She’s been so busy all day, not doing a damn thing.

Receptionist Claire calls up Ana to tell her that she has a call from Mia:

Mia? I hope she doesn’t want to hang at the mall.

 Because Mia is rich, right? That’s why you’re being such a bitch? I just want to be clear on why you wouldn’t like one of the most likable characters in the Twilight series. I would love for Alice to call me while I was working.

“Ana, hi. How are you?” Her excitement is stifling.

Ugh, don’t you hate it when people call you and they’re all, “How are you?” and express a genuine interest in you?

Mia tells Ana that she’s organizing a birthday party for Christian, and Ana realizes that she doesn’t know when Christian’s birthday is. I think that if there was a checklist called “ways to tell if you know someone well enough to marry them,” “Do you know his or her birthday?” would be fairly up there on the list. That’s basic information that comes out randomly pretty early on in knowing someone.

Ana emails Christian – VIA HER COMPANY EMAIL – about his birthday, and says that the thought of him pouting “does things” to her, to which he responds that she should use her BlackBerry to check email. AGAIN. And Ana thinks:

Why is he so touchy about e-mails?

Everyone else read that chapter where she used the company email and he had to have some kind of cyber bodyguard retrieve it and delete it, right? I didn’t pass out on the toilet, smack my head, and dream all of that up, did I?

So, she emails him on her BlackBerry and they flirt for about two more pages, then we section break to quittin’ time. Everyone has gone home, Ana is just hanging around until Jack leaves for the airport, and that’s when he approaches her like Richard O’Brien in Ever After. In fact, just imagine him as this for the next… rest of the book:

“At last, I have you on your own,” he says, and he slowly licks his lower lip.

And then he ties her to the railroad tracks. Or something. No, actually, he just corners her in the office kitchen and finishs the chapter with an ominous:

“Now… are you going to be a good girl and listen very carefully to what I say?”

Which is supposed to be a cliffhanger, I guess, but we all know that unless he’s about to talk about Christian Grey, she ain’t gonna hear a fucking word.

So, announcement #1: a few days ago, I made a video to answer some questions that came from a YouTube friend. My cousin D-Rock and I had such a good time, we decided to turn it into a thing. Like a weekly show. Now, I can’t promise that this show is going to be good. Or focused. Or not-grainy looking. Because of the houseplant in my office, it might look like some episodes were shot in a jungle setting. But we’ll be there, talking about stuff, every week.

Our first episode is what happened when we tried to film a promo, asking for viewers (and blog readers, too!) to send in questions and topics for us. We’ll give you credit when we film it. So, feel free to leave a comment at the video page, or on my YouTube channel, or just in the comments here, and ask us a question or suggest a topic and we’ll talk about it. Here, I’ll just let the two idiots in the video attempt to explain it:

SECOND BIG ANNOUNCEMENT!

Today is the release of the final novella in my Abigail Barnette baseball trilogy. TRIPLE PLAY is going to be out TODAY, folks! Can I just tell you how relieved I am that the Detroit Tigers made it into the post season? Because if the Grand Rapids Bengals are having such a bang-up season in fiction and the Tigers didn’t even make the post, I was going to feel like I cursed them. Anyway, read on for the cover, blurb, and a link to buy (the book will be “on sale” later this afternoon).

“There were two naked ball players passed out in her living room.”

So, there you have it. I’m off to start the next recap, which will hopefully be posted tomorrow or Friday, and to celebrate my release day! My good friends Stella and Audra Price are also celebrating a release day, so skip on over to Resplendence Press and check out their The Things A Djinn Can Do, if you would be so kind!

Shameless self promotion time! As you may remember, I was asked to contribute an essay to 50 Writers on 50 Shades of Grey, a compendium of literary criticism of the 50 Shades series collected by Lori Perkins and published by Smart Pop Books. Shameless Amazon.com Link. The good news is that you could win a copy for absolutely free! Smart Pop Books is doing an amazing launch for this title, and they’re calling it Fifty Days of Fifty Shades. Fifty days, pff. I’ve been doing this for like six months.

I bring up this book not just because I have an essay in it, but because there is an entire section of it about BDSM. I’m excited to see what the BDSM experts contacted for this book have to say about the BDSM in 50 Shades, especially after this particular chapter of 50 Shades Darker. Because sweet punch drunk Jesus, what the hell did I just read?

While the last recap was my absolute favorite chapter, and I laughed at its absurdity until my sides ached, shit got decidedly unfunny in chapter fourteen. If this gets too preachy, well, sorry. But it’s difficult to find something funny to say in the face of so much “kink is bad/love your man to wellness” propaganda.

We last left Ana and Christian in his apartment, where he’s just assumed his World of GOR submission pose:

Christian on his knees at my feet, holding me with his steady gray gaze, is the most chilling and sobering sight I have ever seen – more so than Leila and her gun.

So, right away, things aren’t off to a great start. She would rather be confronted with a crazy woman with a gun than see Christian as a submissive.

I inhale sharply with shock. No. No, this is wrong, so wrong and so disturbing.

What’s so wrong about it? In the first book, Ana willingly submitted in this exact way. Now, Christian is doing it and it’s wrong and disturbing. Is this because Ana is uncomfortable with the usually dominant Christian in sub mode, or is it the idea of a man being submissive that bothers her? Let’s keep reading and find out:

Tears begin to ooze down my cheeks, and suddenly it is too much to see him in the same prostrate position as the pathetic creature that was Leila. the image of a powerful man who’s really still a little boy, who was horrifically abused and neglected, who feels unworthy of love from his perfect family and his much-less-than-perfect girlfriend… my lost boy… it’s heartbreaking.

So, it is the fact that he’s a submissive man that’s bothering her? Oh, that’s… progressive of you, Ana. Look at the wording used there. Leila, the submissive woman, is a pathetic creature. Christian is a powerful man, and to see him in the same position as a woman is heartbreaking and evidence of past emotional trauma.

A lot of people have pointed out, rightly so, that this series paints BDSM as some kind of obstacle to be overcome, that it’s therapy for people who have fucked up pasts and that no “normal” or “healthy” person would want to participate. Defenders of this series have said, “No, it’s just that Christian is fucked up and into BDSM, she never says everyone is fucked up if they do it.

Except for right here, where Ana basically says that everyone who participates in BDSM is fucked up:

The thought of me dominating anyone is appalling. The thought of dominating Christian is nauseating. It would make me like her – the woman who did this to him.

If Ana dominated someone, it would make her as nasty and bad as Mrs. Robinson. Domination is nauseating and appalling, probably because in Ana’s world, a world in which Tess of The D’Urbervilles is a great romance, a woman being superior to a man is entirely unacceptable. If Ana dominates someone, she’s no better than the evil people who do it.

So, what is such a forward thinking woman like Ana to do, when faced with a submissive man? Of course, she has to submit right back:

As my thoughts clear, I can see only one way. Not taking my eyes off his, I sink to my knees in front of him.

Then she thinks:

Like this, we are equals. We’re on a level. This is the only way I’m going to retrieve him.

This is the only way. Christian is clearly suffering from some kind of psychotic break, if he’s gone full fugue-state sex slave mode, but rather than call Dr. Flynn, you know, that guy with the medical degree whose job it is to help Christian Grey with his mental state, Ana is going to break him out with the power of love.

Oh Jesus. Christian going catatonic sub… is the equivalent of Edward’s suicide by sparkle.

“Christian, you don’t have to do this,” I plead. “I’m not going to run. I’ve told you and told you and told you, I won’t run. All that’s happened… it’s overwhelming. I just need some time to think… some time to myself. Why do you always assume the worst?” My heart clenches again because I know; it’s because he’s so doubting, so full of self-loathing.

Ana remembers how Mrs. Robinson knew this side of Christian, and she decides the best course of action is to… talk about herself and her feelings some more:

“I was going to suggest going back to my apartment this evening. You never give me any time… time to just think things through,” I sob, and a ghost of a frown crosses his face. “Just time to think. We barely know each other, and all this baggage that comes with you… I need… I need time to think it through. And now that Leila is… well, whatever she is… she’s off the streets and not a threat… I thought… I thought…” My voice trails off and I stare at him. He regards me intently and I think he’s listening.

Full disclosure, I just got edits back on the last manuscript I turned in. I used fifty-five ellipses in a 24k novella. I blame this book. I have only ever seen more ellipses used in one novel, and that was an erotic retelling of another popular monster story in which I was pretty sure the heroine was having an asthma attack every time she orgasmed. But I digress from my real point, which is that Ana is the shittiest possible person to have with you in a mental crisis situation. Rather than going to get help, she’s going to handle things on her own, and when she does, she’s going to use the opportunity provided by your catatonia to unload all her insecurities on you. Oh, and she’s going to express her jealousy about the way you handled the extremely tense situation you diffused earlier in the day. Because her feelings? They’re more important than whatever you’re going through right now:

“Seeing you with Leila…” I close my eyes as the painful memory of his interaction with his ex-sub gnaws at me anew. “It was such a shock. I had a glimpse into how your life has been… and… ” I gaze down at my knotted fingers, tears still trickling down my cheeks. “This is about me not being good enough for you. It was an insight into your life, and I am so scared you’ll get bored with me, and you’ll go… and I’ll end up like Leila… a shadow. Because I love you, Christian, and if you leave me, it will be like a world without light. I’ll be in darkness. I don’t want to run. I’m just so frightened you’ll leave me…”

So… that’s healthy. And so very Twilight. In New Moon, Edward says this to Bella:

“Before you, Bella, my life was like a moonless night. Very dark, but there were stars – points of light and reason. …And then you shot across my sky like a meteor. Suddenly everything was on fire; there was brilliancy, there was beauty. When you were gone, when the meteor had fallen over the horizon, everything went black. Nothing had changed, but my eyes were blinded by the light. I couldn’t see the stars anymore. And there was no more reason for anything.”

So, the darkness/light theme from the Twilight series is heavily, heavily borrowed for 50 Shades. I just thought I would point that out, in case you forgot you were doing a read-a-long for a plagiarized book. Also, while looking for that particular quote, I found another interesting point. Remember how Ana is always saying people over thirty are old? Thirty was the age that Edward wanted Bella to wait for before being turned into a vampire, and Bella found that impossibly old. So, there’s yet another cribbed Bella trait to add to our plagiarism tally.

But back to 50 Shades Darker:

I realize as I say these words to him – in the hope that he’s listening – what my real problem is. I just don’t get why he likes me. I have never understood why he likes me.

You, and about a million other readers out there. For fuck’s sake, at least Bella was somewhat likable, even if only in hindsight when compared to Ana.

Because Christian’s break down is all about Ana, as literally everything in this book seems to be, she goes on some more about herself. Keep in mind, he still hasn’t spoken, and still seems to be entirely mentally broken down when she starts piling this on him:

“I don’t understand why you find me attractive,” I murmur. “You’re, well, you’re you… and I’m… I shrug and gaze up at him. “I just don’t see it. You’re beautiful and sexy and successful and good and kind and caring – all those things – and I’m not. […]”

In fairness to E.L. James, she couldn’t just say, “You’re a vampire and I’m not,” because that would be plagiarism, and plagiarism is wrong.

Ana continues to list the reasons Chedward should not find her attractive, and she goes through all of this emotional angst and darkness, until she’s tired of it, because somehow, despite all her efforts to talk about herself until Christian either snaps out of it or just dies from boredom like Brenda at the end of Six Feet Under, he doesn’t have a miraculous recovery from his sub state.

Oh, he is so exasperating. Talk to me, damn it!

“Are you going to kneel here all night? Because I’ll do it, too,” I snap at him.

Ugh, sooooo exasperating. I mean, she’s tried literally everything. She’s talked about how she feels. She’s blamed him for making her feel that way. She’s even cried about how ugly she thinks she is. Why is none of this working? I guess we’ll just have to put poor Chedward down.

I could reach across and touch him, but this would be a gross abuse of the position he’s put me in. I don’t want that, but I don’t know what he wants, or what he’s trying to say to me. I just don’t understand.

She’s so afraid that she’s going to accidentally dominate him, she won’t touch him, so she just sits there until her knees hurt, at which point he finally snaps out of things:

“I was so scared,” he whispers.

Were you in the bad place, Chedward? Seriously, this is the most overwrought and ridiculous thing I can even imagine. I cannot wait for the movie, for this scene specifically, because holy god, I am going to be laughing my ass off. Let’s look at what really just happened here, okay? Ana asked Christian for some space to think about things, so he drops to the floor all dramatic like a toddler who doesn’t want to put his coat on, and Ana figures the only cure is to talk about herself for like, twenty minutes straight, until his tantrum is done.

Because you know what, reader? I’m sorry, I don’t care how deeply you are “in the life,” if your response to a high stress situation is to go full on sex robot, to the point that no one can snap you out of it, then you have real problems and you need to get them tended to. And not by your girlfriend who thinks she can solve any problem by making it all about her. By a real person, like a Dr. Flynn. I’m torn between horror that this is what passes for gripping plot these days, and horror because I’ve known people who actually behave like this, going into some dramatic silent state that forces everyone around to worry about them until they feel they’ve gotten the requisite amount of attention. You know what? Christian wasn’t catatonic. He was waiting. He was waiting for Ana to beat herself down about how not pretty, not worthy she is, and he was waiting for her to become worried enough that she won’t think of leaving now. Not even to go home to her apartment for the night. He’s faking emotional fragility to manipulate her, and she’s too naive to see it. Instead, she’s blaming it on the fact that he used to be a sub in a D/s relationship.

Ana is predictably grateful that Chedward is talking again, so she listens to him tell her all about his problems, at least, for a little bit:

“When I saw Ethan outside, I knew someone had let you into your apartment. Both Taylor and I leapt out of the car. We knew, and to see her there like that with you – and armed. I think I died a thousand deaths, Ana. Someone threatening you… all my worst fears realized. I was so angry, with her, with you, with Taylor, with myself.”

That’s some misplaced anger, then, Chedward. You can’t be angry at Ana. She did nothing but go upstairs to her apartment. You can’t be mad at Taylor, because he was driving you around, as per your orders. You didn’t even send him inside with Ana to be extra superdeedooper sure she’d be safe. And while I suppose it’s okay to be a little angry with the woman holding the gun, this entire situation happened because of you, because while you pay so much attention to little details like legally covering your ass, you can’t even manage to put a fucking lock on your filing cabinet full of personal information about every woman you’ve ever fucked. Or, you know, treat them like people.

He shakes his head revealing his agony.

Whaaaaaat? How does that reveal agony? Yesterday, my husband asked me if I wanted a glass of wine, and I shook my head because my mouth was too full of delicious, delicious schnitzel to answer him, and he dropped the bottle and rushed to my side, begging to know why I was so agonized. Or not, actually, because shaking your head doesn’t mean you’re agonized. Give us some other physical representation of this alleged agony.

“Seeing her in that state, knowing that I might have something to do with her mental breakdown…” He closes his eyes once more. “She was always so mischievous and lively.”

I call bullshit. He doesn’t want anyone mischievous and lively, he wants them naive and easily exploited. He made a big deal about not wanting to get involved with Ana because of her virginity, but what was it that made her attractive to him in the first place? Her grace and poise? Not likely, since she exhibited neither. He can’t prey on women who are self-assured and confident, so either Leila was never mischievous and lively, or she was mischievous and lively in exactly the same way that Ana is strong and smart. I guess these things are in the psychopathic eye of the beholder.

Christian says that if Leila had hurt Ana, it would have been all his fault. I think he certainly would have a hefty share of the blame, what with his not calling the cops and stuff. I’m not saying the police could prevent a crazy person from stalking Ana, but they could have helped find her. And yes, as a commenter pointed out, some times the police are heavy handed with the mentally ill and calling the police becomes tantamount to a death sentence, but I’m guessing that in Seattle, if you’re a billionaire, you can buy the appropriate police response.

I realize this is getting a bit long winded, but there’s no help for it. The book is just really this full of plot holes and inconsistencies.

Ana tells Christian that it’s not his fault Leila is the way she is, but that’s only because Ana is currently in an abusive relationship, so she can’t recognize the fallout of Christian’s previous, probably also abusive, relationship.

Then it dawns on me that everything he did was to keep me safe, and perhaps Leila, too, because he also cares for her.

But how much does he care for her? The question lingers in my head, unwelcome. He says he loves me, but then he was so harsh, throwing me out of my own apartment.

Let me get this straight. Even though Chedward goes (allegedly) catatonic with the thought of her leaving, even though the situation she’s describing involves a highly unstable person in mental crisis who had a gun drawn on Ana, Ana still believes that Christian’s reaction – removing her from the situation – is a sign that he doesn’t love her and he really loves Leila more?

Oh, I get it now. There is no fucking plot to be had here. The entire “plot” of this series has already wrapped up. We know, without a fucking doubt, that Ana and Christian are going to end up together. And really, they deserve each other. But that’s the end of the story. See, at least in Twilight there were new dangers and things popping up all the time, so that by the time Bella and Edward were really, truly together forever at the end of New Moon, there were outside forces trying to rip them apart. E.L. seems to really want to set up the same kind of “outside forces are ripping them apart” tension for Chedward and Ana, but it’s not working because she is unwilling to let her characters participate in any plot that isn’t staring soulfully into each other’s eyes, crying, and later fucking. Because this isn’t a book. It’s an author’s mental masturbation.

Christian returns to normal pretty quickly, once Ana assures him she’s not going to leave. Oh my gosh, it’s almost like… like he was faking that whole thing to get her to do what he wanted.

I choke and my tears start anew. “I thought I’d broken you.”

“Broken? Me? Oh no, Ana. Just the opposite.”

“I was faking the whole time, to manipulate you,” he said, and Jen was like, “Aha! I knew it!” No, just kidding. He says she’s his lifeline, and then he lets her touch him:

With his eyes wide and full of fear, he gently tugs my hand and places it on his chest over his heart – in the forbidden zone.

I gasp. Oh, my Fifty! He’s letting me touch him. And it’s like all the air in my lungs has vaporized – gone.

Oh my sweet baby Jesus. Really? The oxygen you’re breathing can’t vaporize. Vapor only refers to the gas state of a substance that can exist in a solid or liquid state at around the same temperature (think boiling water and steam). Unless Ana’s lungs are running at a brisk 90 degrees Kelvin and she normally breathes liquid oxygen, this metaphor is stupid. And it’s stupid anyway, because who refers to gas as vaporizing? Especially when in prose, we tend to use the words “vapor,” “ether,” “gas,” and “air,” about interchangeably.

Ana decides to heal him through more touch, which gives us the opportunity to read the most awkwardly worded passage ever. At least, since the last one we read. As always, emphasis mine:

Gently I start to undo the buttons on his shirt. It’s tricky with one hand. I flex my fingers beneath his hand and he lets go, allowing me to use both hands to undo his shirt. My eyes don’t leave his as I pull his shirt wide open, revealing his chest.

 Since all I’m seeing right now in my mind is a shirt with hands all over it, or a shirt made out of hands, or a shirt with human hands sewn to it, and then I just snap back to Buffalo Bill –

Gently I start to undo the buttons on his shirt. It’s tricky with one hand. I flex my fingers beneath his and he lets go. My eyes don’t leave his as I pull the fabric wide open, revealing his chest.

You know what’s really depressing? E.L. James was so in-demand from her first small-press publishing run, she most likely had total freedom to just blithely ignore edit suggestions when Vintage put this book out. Now, she’s outsold Harry Potter, so guess what kind of freedom she’s going to have to say, “No thank you, publisher, I don’t think I’ll be doing these edits after all.” Soooo much freedom. Here’s an insider secret: you know why there were so damn many unnecessary semi-colons in the Harry Potter series? Because they knew that people would buy the books whether or not they were edited for grammar. In fact, it probably saved them money not to spend time fixing the semi-colons. When you get to a certain level in publishing, everyone tells you that what you’re doing is golden, keep doing it, because it’s making them money, and the bigger the profit margin, the better. It’s going to be the same thing with E.L. James’s next book, and the real downside is that she is nowhere near as skilled a writer as J.K. Rowling. So we’re in for the most epic shitfest to ever debut at #1 on the NYT list. Winter is coming, is what I’m saying.

Ana keeps touching Christian and asking permission to do so with her eyes:

“Yes,” he breathes – again with the weird ability to answer my unspoken questions.

Because he’s a vampire.

There is a lot of back and forth mentally about whether or not touching him like this is good for him, blah blah blah:

His eyes are screwed up so tightly. This must be agony. It’s truly tormenting to watch.

It’s not a picnic to read, either. And it just keeps going on, for a total of two long, overwrought, adjective-filled pages where his eyes blaze and she gazes and there are painful kisses and one emotional “No!” so, you know, drink ’em if you’ve got ’em, and then Christian reveals the big secret, the really biggety big one that we’ve been waiting for from this “beautiful, fucked up man” since the very first time we saw the Red Room:

“I’m a sadist, Ana. I like to whip little brown-haired girls like you because you all like the crack whore – my birth mother. I’m sure you can guess why.”

Oh my god. Was ever there a “big reveal” so thoroughly ridiculous? Honestly, when I read that, I laughed, first a loud, surprised bark, as though I had become a beagle or other kind of small-game hunting dog. Then it was just a long, gasping, red-faced, wheezing nightmare of side-hurty laughter I could not control. Really? That’s the big “secret”? That he likes to beat women who all look the same? I DID NOT SEE THAT COMING.

Except for where I totally saw that coming. And you did, too, probably.

I really love the way he tacked, “I’m sure you can guess why,” on the end. Like, of course! Who doesn’t refer to their mother as a whore and seek out women who look like her to beat them, am I right? Of course, Ana understands what it’s about.

So, he’s admitted to being a sadist, and Ana decides now she really can’t give him what he needs, drama, drama, silly drama, drama, drama, goose, until Christian tells her how he’s a changed man:

“Ana, believe me. After I punished you and you left me, my worldview changed. I wasn’t joking when I said I would avoid ever feeling like that again.” He gazes at me with pained entreaty. “When you said you loved me, it was a revelation. No one’s ever said it to me before, and it was as if I’d laid something to rest – or maybe you’d laid it to rest, I don’t know. Dr. Flynn and I are still in deep discussion about it.”

So, there you have it, ladies. If your man beats on you, you just have to love him harder, and he’ll change! This isn’t a destructive, frustrating, infuriating message at all! Keep reading these books and telling everyone how you realize how problematic they are, but you’re going to recommend them to all your friends, anyway, because after all, it’s just fantasy!

Someone asked recently why I “hate” on the readers who liked this series. I don’t “hate” them. I’m just pissed off at them for making excuses for this blatant anti-female, anti-sex propaganda that tells women that kink is only for fucked up people, and if their guy is physically and emotionally abusive, they’re just not loving him hard enough. And you know, I don’t feel like I need to be particularly nice to women who want to further that message in our culture, just like I wouldn’t be nice to Paul Ryan if he emailed me asking why I just can’t be more civil about his policies regarding abortion. Because I can’t, because if you’re civil and nice about this shit, people take it as tacit agreement with whatever fucked up thing they’re trying to say.

Hope flares briefly in my heart. Perhaps we’ll be okay. I want us to be okay. Don’t I?

Oh good, now all the conflict will be internal again! I was so bored of the heart-stopping external conflict.

Christian and Ana argue a bit about whether or not he can be happy in a relationship with her, and does she meet his needs and all the boring shit we’ve been over a thousand times before.

“You’re still here. I thought you would be out of the door by now,” he whispers.

“Why? Because I might think you’re a sicko for whipping and fucking women who look like your mother? Whatever would give you that impression?” I hiss, lashing out.

That’s a pun.

Here’s the thing about Ana. She says she wants to know this shit, that nothing he can do is going to push her away, but the second Christian confides in her, she mocks him cruelly. That’s not really helpful, Ana, if he truly doubts himself as much as you think he does.

And unbidden, I recall the photograph in his childhood bedroom, and in that moment realize why the woman in it looked so familiar. She looked like him. She must have been his biological mother.

His easy dismissal of her comes to mind: No one of consequence… She’s responsible for all this… and I look like her… Fuck!

Um… how is his mother responsible for all of this, exactly? The only thing she ever did was die in front of him. Granted, overdosing while home alone with your kid isn’t exactly the most responsible parenting, but she was a drug addict. She was a sick person. And it’s not like there hasn’t been ample opportunity and resources for Christian to work through this. Did his parents not get him therapy as a child, what with his whole not talking and having been left in a room with a corpse for four days? Maybe some of the blame lies there, instead of the poor, dead addict.

Ana asks if they can talk about this all in the morning, because she’s really tired from her long day of self-obsession, and Christian is surprised that she isn’t leaving him. I’m thinking he probably already knew the outcome, because he was emotionally manipulating her.

Can I leave him? I left him once before, and it nearly broke me… and him.

I figured out where the “leaving/left” thing came from. Edward talks about how he left Bella in New Moon. But you know what? That was actual leaving. He packed his shit up and left town. He went to a different continent. That’s “leaving,” and what you did, Ana? That was breaking up.

Ana asks Christian what she can do to make him believe that she won’t leave him, and he’s like:

“Marry me,” he whispers.

BAM. YOU JUST GOT TWILIGHTED RIGHT IN THE DICKHOLE, READER.

Ana starts laughing hysterically, which makes it the very first time in the entire series that she and I are doing the same thing for the same reason at the same time. And then she starts crying, and I’m like, “Exactly, Ana, we must be reading the same book.”

He’s leaning over me. His mouth is twisted with wry amusement, but his eyes are a burning gray, maybe wounded.

His eyes are always burning, or blazing. I’m beginning to think he smokes as much pot as I do.

I shake my head at him. “Whatever happened to delayed gratification?”

“I got over it, and I’m now a firm advocate of instant gratification. Carpe diem, Ana,” he whispers.

Carpe that diem, Ana, and move really quickly to a step in a relationship that you’re already not sure  you still want to be in, because that’s what love is!

Ana asks him for time to think about it, and he’s all, “‘So, that’s not a no?'” and I’m all,

Since Mrs. Jones is off, Christian decides he’ll just make Ana mac and cheese, even though when he offers just cheese she says “‘Not at this hour,'” but I guess the macaroni makes it different somehow.

Who would have thought? Christian Grey likes nursery food.

You know us Americans, E.L., we do so pine for whatever reminds us of the nursery that we totally had because we’re all secretly British.

Speaking of Britishisms, after Ana expresses disbelief that he knows how to use a microwave, Chedward says:

“If it’s in a packet, I can usually do something with it. […]”

You know us Americans, E.L., always referring to our food as being in packets.

Christian asks Ana if she’s still down to go to New York over the weekend, because he still doesn’t get that she wanted to go to New York as a part of her job, to advance her career, because he never had to work for anything in his fucking life and just has had everything handed to him. Christian also mentions that Taylor was upset and looking for her:

“I didn’t know where you were. You left your purse, your phone. I couldn’t even track you. Where did you go?” he asks. His voice is soft, but there’s an ominous undercurrent to his words.

So, here he is, admitting that he makes it a habit of tracking her via cellphone. Ah, the romance. I can hardly bear it.

Christian is all jealous and possessive about her being out with Ethan, so she asks him what he did with Leila. Because, like I said before, there’s no plot here, so we just have to rehash pointless fights over and over again to give the illusion that this book is well-written and going somewhere.

“We talked, and I gave her a bath.” His voice is hoarse, and he continues quickly when I make no response. “And I dressed her in some of your clothes. I hope you don’t mind. But she was filthy.”

“What was I doing in your apartment with my ex-girlfriend who wanted to murder you? You know, the usual. I gave her a bath in your bathtub, used your shampoos and toiletries, then I figured, gosh, you know, she looks so much like you, she could wear your clothes, too. I hope this doesn’t set off some jealous response in you.”

That cool, intellectual part of my brain knows that he just did that because she was dirty, but it’s too hard. My fragile, jealous self can’t bear it.

Suddenly, I want to cry – not succumb to ladylike tears that trickle decorously down my cheeks, but howling-at-the-moon crying.

Don’t you have a werewolf friend-zoned somewhere? He could help you out with that.

This is just too much to absorb. I’m like an overflowing tank of gasoline – full, beyond capacity. There is no room for any more.

Thanks for cluing us into what “overflowing” means. I really needed the added context to grasp that.

“Don’t. It doesn’t mean anything. It was like caring for a child, a broken, shattered child.”

What the hell would he know about caring for a child? This was a woman he had a very full-on, deviant sexual relationship

A lot of people really like Harry Potter. I mean, in case you didn’t know. It’s pretty indie and underground, but basically the story is about a kid who has a shitty life until he finds out he’s a wizard, and then he has a shitty life but there’s magic and also a haunted boarding school with a borderline abusive, definitely neglectful staff.

It’s not that I hate Harry Potter, or I think I could do better myself or something. I very much enjoy Harry Potter. I just occasionally start picking at the things I love, like a scab, until the whole thing dissolves in my hands in a mess of blood and Neosporin. The more I think about it, the more the entire story is super depressing, and very confusing to me. Here are just a sampling of things I don’t understand:

1. What the fuck is up with that school? In his first year at Hogwarts, Harry almost dies about eleventy-bajillion times. The reader is asked to believe that Hogwarts is this awe-inspiring place of childhood dreams and happiness, but think about what happens to these poor kids. You’re what, nine, eleven, whichever, and you get plucked from your family and sent to live in a spooky old castle where ghosts wander about freely and some of your teachers may or may not be terrorists actively working to murder you and your fellow students. There is a dorm you can be assigned to that will statistically up your chances of becoming an ally of evil forces, and the entire place is booby trapped to the point that if you accidentally end up in the wrong place (with a little help from your friend the staircases, who change their architecture just to fuck up your day), you could get ripped apart by a giant three-headed dog. This is not safe. This is not where you’d want to be as a child. And these kids are frequently working with highly volatile substances, like vegetables that can kill you with the sound of their voice, spells that can make you vomit slugs, and even more teachers who might be terrorists. If I were a wizard, I would homeschool my kids, because I can guarantee that living at Hogwarts would have totally traumatized me.

2. If they have time travel, why don’t they use it to go back and kill Voldemort when he was a baby? The time travel in Harry Potter confuses and enrages me. Okay, the wizards have time travel. They have created a means by which they can go back and right the wrongs of the past. They use it so kids can double major. The rules of Harry Potter time travel are kind of wishy-washy, aren’t they? You’re not supposed to see yourself in the past… unless you know you’re going to see yourself? Or something? It was okay to go back in time and save Buckbeak’s life, but not to turn back time to save Cedric Diggory when he died? Some fans assert that traveling into the past to change events would be futile, as whatever a person is dealing with in the present is the consequence of circumstances that already happened, meaning that any attempt to change the past has already failed the moment you set out to do so, and everything is fixed along an already decided pattern in time. For example, Harry could travel back to cast his Patronus and save himself and Sirius from the Dementors because he had already done so… does this make anyone else’s head go all hurty? The Time-Turner also doesn’t seem to be able to send anyone into the future, so if it can’t change the past and you can’t get a peek at the future, the only thing it’s good for is explaining to the present version of yourself how very clever you’re about to be a few days ago. But if wizards are able to manipulate the space/time continuum, why don’t they just… go back and kill Voldemort when he was a baby?

3. Adults are putting way too much pressure on these kids. I remember reading the last Harry Potter book, where the Aurors show up and they’re like, “Hey kids, we’re probably going to die on this dangerous mission, put on these Harry Potter disguises so the bad guys don’t know who to kill. Thanks.” Okay, you know what? Fuck you, Aurors. You guys are employed by the Ministry of Magic. You are adults who have chosen to live a high-risk life in a dangerous career. Ron and Hermione? They’re teenagers. They’re not getting paid to take these chances. They’re being emotionally manipulated into it. “Do this, or your friend will die.” Yeah, that’s a choice someone should ethically put to someone whose frontal lobe is still developing. And if it’s so damned important for Voldemort to not get a hold of Harry Potter, why not put him in a secure location and keep him there? Like, off the top of my head, The Room of Requirement at Hogwarts, or inside one of those TARDIS-like trunk things The 10th Doctor Barty Crouch was using to hide Mad-Eye Moody in? Clearly, wizards are able to manipulate dimensions to make things bigger on the inside, so why not make Harry Potter a nice little house inside a shoe box and then put that shoebox where Voldemort can’t find it? Or just keep feeding him polyjuice potion to make him look like someone who isn’t, you know. Cursed from birth. Don’t make the poor bastard fight for his life for the entire seven books.

Yes, I realize that if they did literally any of this stuff, the books would not have a plot or a setting and basically not exist, and no, I’m not the greatest monster of our age, I don’t want Harry Potter to not exist. But I have a lot of free time, and thinking is is the curse of the Time Lords.

Now, months ago I mentioned that some day, I might tell the story of when Forrest Gump ruined my life. I can’t believe how many of you are interested in hearing that story. I also can’t believe it wasn’t pretty self explanatory:

Every time I try to tell someone about the big spider I saw in my house, I hear something along the lines of, “Oh, I know, I had one the size of a dime in my kitchen!” And I listen politely, because in the past, before I lived in the house American Horror Story was surely based off of, I would have freaked out at a dime-sized spider, myself. Heck, I would have freaked out at a spider the size of the ball in a ballpoint pen, because that is how much I used to dislike spiders.

Let’s just take a moment to celebrate the fact that my book, which was horrifically overdue, is now finished. That’s twenty-two books I have written since 2002, when I started writing. Some books are really easy to write. Some are struggles like unto pushing a boulder up a mountain, and then up another, bigger mountain that is inexplicably perched atop that first mountain. This book was the latter, but it is finished now.

The good news is, I get to pass the savings on to you! I am going to endeavor to get back to two recaps a week, and I have a lot of other fun blog topics coming up, which may include:

• Why male bashing is anti-feminist
• Why Pinterest is going to destroy Western civilization
• Famous people I suspect of being aliens
• Why I don’t give a shit about other people’s bad moods
• Stuff I don’t understand about Harry Potter

She’s here, gazing at me with an unnerving blank expression, holding a gun. My subconscious swoons into a dead faint, and I don’t think even smelling salts will bring her back.

That’s right. Even with a gun pointed at her, Ana has to think up something for her imaginary friends to do.

I blink repeatedly at Leila as my mind goes into overdrive. How did she get in? Where’s Ethan? Holy shit! Where is Ethan?

Note that she thinks about Ethan only after she checks up on her internal imaginary friend.

Leila’s expression remains blank, and her appearance is as scruffy and ill-kempt as ever. She’s still wearing that grubby trench coat, and she looks desperately in need of a shower. Her hair is greasy and lank, plastered against her head, and her eyes are a dull brown, cloudy, and vaguely confused.

If her eyes are “cloudy,” does she have cataracts? And of course Ana would think Leila needs a shower. Remember how often Ana showers. If you’re not bathing three times a day minimum, of course you’re going to look dirty to her.

Ana decides to try to talk to Leila, and when she does, Leila responds:

“She speaks,” she whispers, and her voice is soft and hoarse at the same time, an eerie sound.

She spoke the first time Ana met her. In fact, they had a conversation, so I don’t see why this should surprise Leila, even if she is crazy. Judging by the way the character of Leila is written, I would go so far as to say to that E.L. James has never interacted with a truly unhinged person, and she based this entire character off Nancy in the last twenty minutes of The Craft.

“Alone,” she whispers. “Alone.” And the depth of sadness in that one word is heart wrenching. What does she mean? I am alone? She’s alone? She’s alone because she’s harmed Ethan?

It doesn’t take a lot to figure this one out, Detective Ana. You already know that she’s recently left her husband and her boyfriend just died. Or maybe it was the other way around. I can’t keep all these subplots straight. Anyway, she left someone, someone died, and she’s still obsessed with Christian. It isn’t all about you, Anastasia Rose Steele.

“What are you doing here? Can I help you?” My words are a calm, gentle interrogation despite the suffocating fear in my throat. Her brow furrows as if she’s completely befuddled by my questions. But she makes no violent move against me. Her hand is still relaxed around her gun. I take a different tack, trying to ignore my tightening scalp.

Okay, she’s not doing anything violent… except she has a gun and she’s broken into your house. This is where we finally see Ana’s bravery, by the way. We hear about how brave and strong she is, and she finally has the chance to prove it to us, and does, by not just screaming and shitting at the sight of a crazy person with a gun.

“Would you like some tea?” Why am I asking her if she wants tea? It’s Ray’s answer to any emotional situation, resurfacing inappropriately. Jeez, he’d have a fit if he saw me right this minute. His army training would have kicked in, and he’d have disarmed her by now.

Wait, is she “Jeez”ing the fact that her father wouldn’t want her to be in a room with a crazy person holding a gun? Guh, dads. They’re so unreasonable. And we’ve talked about Britishisms in this book before. As an American person, let me just say that it strikes me as comically, stereotypically British to offer an armed intrude a cup of tea.

She’s not actually pointing that gun at me. Perhaps I can move. She shakes her head and tilts it from side to side as if stretching her neck.

I take a deep precious lungful of air, trying to calm my panicked breathing, and move toward the kitchen island. She frowns as if she can’t quite understand what I am doing and shifts a little so she is still facing me. I reach the kettle and with a shaking hand fill it from the faucet. As I move, my breathing eases. Yes, if she wanted me dead, surely she would have shot me by now.

Or not. She might use the gun to get you into a car, where she will drive you to a secondary location and torture you for hours. Not that I’ve daydreamed about this scenario over the past five or so months that I’ve been recapping these books or anything.

She watches me with an absent, bemused curiosity.

How does that work, exactly? Absent implies a lack of concern in the moment. Curiosity kind of requires you to be in the moment, and if you’re bemused, you would be even more focused, because you’re actively trying to puzzle out what’s going on. At least we got to the second page of this chapter before we got our first sentence tragedy.

Ana tries again to ask Leila if Ethan is in the apartment, but she can’t get anything out of her that isn’t crazy:

She inclines her head the other way, and with her right hand – the hand not holding the revolver – she grabs a strand of her long greasy hair and starts twirling and fiddling with it, pulling and twisting.

While Ana watches Leila act out every scene Angelina Jolie had in Girl, Interrupted, she thinks again how alike they look. Ana and Leila, that is, not Leila and Angelina Jolie. There, I committed a sentence travesty of my own.

“Alone. All alone,” she murmurs. I find this comforting. Maybe Ethan isn’t here.

There really is nothing more comforting than the ramblings of a crazy person.

“Not thirsty,” she answers softly, and she takes a cautious step toward me. My feeling of empowerment evaporates. Fuck! I start panting with fear again, feeling it surge thick and rough through my veins. In spite of this, and feeling beyond brave, I turn and fetch a couple of cups from the cupboard.

“What do you have that I don’t?” she asks, her voice assuming the singsong intonation of a child.

I totally get why he’s into her now.

“Master – Mr. Grey – he lets you call him by his given name.”

“I’m not his submissive, Leila. Er… Master understands that I am unable, inadequate to fulfill that role.”

She tilts her head to the other side. It’s wholly unnerving and unnatural as a gesture.

“In-ad-e-quate.” She tests the word, sounding it out, seeing how it feels on her tongue. “But Master is happy. I have seen him. He laughs and smiles. These reactions are rare… very rare for him.”

“You look like me.” Leila changes tack, surprising me, her eyes seeming truly to focus on me for the first time. “Master likes obedient ones who look like you and me. The others, all the same… all the same… and yet you sleep in his bed. I saw you.”

“I never slept in Master’s bed,” she murmurs. She’s like a fallen ethereal wraith. Half a person. She looks so slight, and in spite of the fact that she’s holding a gun, I suddenly feel overwhelmed with sympathy for her.

Note that Ana only feels sympathy for her when she realizes that Leila is half a person because she’s not with Christian anymore. Because ladies, if you haven’t experienced Christian Grey, if you’re not worthy of his shining, golden love, you’re basically half a person. Which makes Ana the only fully realized woman in the past and future of the human race. So… that’s good news.

“Why does master like us like this? It makes me think something… something… Master is dark… Master is a dark man, but I love him.”

No, no he’s not. I bristle internally. He’s not dark. He’s a good man, and he’s not in the dark. He’s joined me in the light. And now she’s here, trying to drag him back with some warped idea that she loves him.

The air was heavy with vampire allegory, dear reader.  How can Ana possibly say that Christian isn’t a dark person, when she’s spent most of this book and all of the last book thinking about how dark and tortured he is? In the last fucking chapter she was thinking about how dark he is. What has changed?

Oh, that’s right. She’s brought him into the light with the shining goodness of her pure, not-BDSM sexuality. Because BDSM is dark and horrible, and she’s going to heal and rescue him with the power of the missionary position. Or something.

Ana asks Leila to give her the gun, and that doesn’t go down well:

“This is mine. It’s all I have left.” She gently caresses the gun. “So she can join her love.”

Shit! Which love – Christian? It’s like she’s punched me in the stomach. I know he will be here momentarily to find out what’s keeping me. Does she mean to shoot him? The thought is so horrific, I feel my throat swell and ache as a huge knot forms there, almost choking me, matching the fear that’s balled tightly in my stomach.

Oh, so she is having an asthma attack. Glad she cleared that up for us. But seriously? “Which love – Christian?” Who the fuck else, Ana? Who else would she be talking about, if she’s stalking Christian?

Now, this is a nit-pick of total personal opinion, so if you don’t agree, don’t worry about it. But I find it kind of stupid that only when Ana considers that Leila might want to shoot Christian that it’s a “horrific” situation. Not when she thought about Leila shooting Ethan, or shooting her. It’s only “horrific” if the most important person in the world, Christian Philipe Louis Arthur Trevalyan Grey, Esq. is going to be shot. Fuck you, Ana. Anyone getting shot is horrific. ANYONE.

Christian busts through the door, with Taylor behind him. Taylor isn’t a very good bodyguard, is he? I mean, I hate to criticize him (because he is all that is good and pure in this world), but what kind of bodyguard lets the person they’re supposed to be protecting burst through a door ahead of them? Isn’t that like, Body Guarding 101?

My world teeters precariously in the hands of this poor, fucked-up woman. Will she shoot? Both of us? Just Christian? The thought is crippling.

You know what else is crippling sometimes? Being shot. Like, actually crippling, not just emotionally.

But after an eternity, as time hangs suspended around us, her head dips slightly and she gazes up at him through her long lashes, her expression contrite.

Wow, they really do look alike, huh? Right down to the impossibly weird facial expressions.

Christian holds up his hand, signaling to Taylor to stay where he is. Taylor’s blanched face betrays his fury. I have never seen him like this, but he stands stock-still as Christian and Leila stare at each other. 

Because Taylor protects what’s his, Ana, and he’s in love with you! Okay, but in the reality of this actual storyline… why does Christian have a bodyguard? He talks about how badass Taylor is, how safe he can keep them, but every time some danger comes up, Christian charges in like the fucking cavalry and tells Taylor to stand back. If Christian is such a bad ass, why does he need a security team?

The answer is, of course, that he doesn’t need a security team, because the author is so convinced of the perfection of her main characters that she can’t pass up any opportunity to display to the readers just how perfect they are, even if doing so would inject a little tiny bit of much needed realism to her work.

This is where everything goes all hilariously shitty. I actually cackled and rubbed my hands together before I typed the next excerpt:

I realize I am holding my breath. What will she do? What will he do? But they just continue to stare at each other. Christian’s expression is raw, full of some unnamed emotion. It could be pity, fear, affection… or is it love? No, please, not love!

 No! Suddenly I feel I’m the interloper, intruding on them as they stand gazing at each other. I’m an outsider – a voyeur, spying on a forbidden, intimate scene behind closed curtains.

Christian’s intense gaze burns brighter, and his bearing changes subtly. He looks taller, more angular somehow, colder, and more distant. I recognize this stance. I’ve seen him like this before – in his playroom.

So, of course, this is going to bring up all of Ana’s insecurities on the subject of BDSM:

Finally he mouths a word at her. I can’t make out what it is, but the effect on Leila is immediate. She drops to the floor on her knees, her head bowed, and the gun falls and skitters uselessly across the wooden floor.

This is how E.L. James apparently sees people who are into BDSM. Brainwashed automatons who are mentally ill and dangerously unstable. Ana isn’t that way, because she’s not a true submissive. Are you guys picking up those subtle clues? I’m pointing them out because I don’t want you to miss the jist of the entire series, which is that BDSM is fucked up and only for people who are fucked up.

Christian walks calmly over to where the gun has fallen and bends gracefully to pick it up. He regards it with ill-disguised disgust, and then slips it into his jacket pocket.

Oh, and guns. Guns are also bad.

Christian tells Ana to go with Taylor. Ethan is safe downstairs. But Ana doesn’t want to go, because her boyfriend might cheat on her with her home invader:

I don’t want to leave him – leave him wit her. He moves to stand beside Leila as she kneels at his feet. He’s hovering over her, protectively. She’s so still, it’s unnatural. I can’t take my eyes off the two of them – together…

I’m beginning to get a sense of why Christian doesn’t want to go to the police about Leila. Whatever he did to her to make her like this has to be a crime. Brainwashing another person is a crime, right? I mean, if you’re not doing it as a form of advertisement or religion?

Ana still isn’t leaving, but luckily Christian is there to say what we’re all thinking:

“For the love of God, Anastasia, will you do as you’re told for once in your life and go!” Christian’s eyes lock with mine as he glowers at me, his voice a cold shard of ice. The anger beneath the quiet, deliberate delivery of his words is palpable.

Angry at me? No way. Please – no! I feel like he’s slapped me hard. Why does he want to stay with her?

Get over yourself, Anastasia Rose Steele. As I’ve mentioned before, not everything is about you. Christian is trying to get you safely away from the woman who broke into your apartment with a drawn firearm. How pathetically insecure do you have to be to think you need to protect your claim on this guy from her?

I glance down at Leila and notice a very small smile cross her lips, but otherwise she remains truly impassive. A complete submissive. Fuck! My heart chills.

 This is what he needs. This is what he likes. No! I want to wail.

Oh, that insecure. Thanks for clearing that up for us.

I am immobilized by the horrific spectacle before me. It confirms my worst fears and plays on all my insecurities: Christian and Leila together – the Dom and his sub.

“Taylor,” Christian urges, and Taylor leans down and scoops me into his arms. The last thing I see as we leave is Christian gently stroking Leila’s head as he murmurs something softly to her.

No!

Add “No!” to the drinking game. But it must have the exclamation point. Check out the recurrence of “horrific.” Before, it was “horrific” to think of Christian getting shot, now it’s “horrific” to see him in proximity to one of his ex-girlfriends. That word is losing a lot of meaning for me right now. I used to say that the overall message of this book and it’s popularity were “horrific,” but clearly I need to find a stronger word. “Catastrophic,” maybe, or some combination of tragic and hilarious. Traglarious. Tragilaristrophic.

Here’s the beginning of a new fic, for all you Ana/Taylor shippers:

As Taylor carries me down the stairs, I lie limply in his arms trying to grasp what’s happened in the last ten minutes -or was it longer? Shorter? The concept of time has deserted me.

Also, the concepts of common sense and trust in her romantic partner, but we’re not here to judge.

Oh, shit, yes we are! That is exactly why we’re here, so:

Christian and Leila, Leila and Christian… together? What is he doing with her now?

Fucking her probably, are you happy?

Ana explains to Ethan what’s happening, but only after he has to ask her three times what’s going on. When Ana explains it, Ethan asks:

“Has anyone called the cops?”

You know, like any rational person might wonder. But Ana tells him, “‘No, it’s not like that.'” What is it not like? It’s “not like” there’s an armed intruder in your home? Because it seems like it’s exactly like that.

Still, Ethan accepts that lame explanation and says:

“Hey, Ana, let’s go get a drink.”

I can’t talk about this – I have signed an NDA. And for the first time, I really resent that fact, plus that Christian’s said nothing about rescinding it.

No, you felt a fair amount of resentment about it before, when he told you that you couldn’t share details about your sex life with your best friend. This isn’t even the first time in this book that you’ve resented the NDA.

Ana gives him the Reader’s Digest condensed version of what was going on, including the gun, and Ethan wants to know what Christian is doing with the crazy gun lady:

This is the crux of my problem. What the fuck are they doing? Talking, I hope. Just talking. Yet all I can see in my mind’s eye is his hand, tenderly stroking her hair.

This is not the crux of your problem. The crux of your problem is that you’re too emotionally immature to be in a romantic relationship with anyone, let alone a broken billionaire who is emotionally abusive and exhibits clear symptoms of Borderline Personality Disorder. Leila is just a little satellite problem orbiting the vast galaxy of problems you have.

She’s disturbed and Christian cares about her; that’s all this is,  I rationalize. But in the back of my mind, my subconscious is shaking her head sadly.

All that proves is that your subconscious is a fucking idiot, too, Ana.

Ana spends some more time mentally torturing herself about how Leila can fulfill Christian’s needs more than she can, and what Mrs. Robinson said about missing the playroom, etc.

My mind, my heart, my soul are still in that apartment with my Fifty Shades and the woman who used to be his submissive. A woman who thinks she still loves him. A woman who looks like me.

Which I guess would be a problem if you were dating a facial recognition software package, but you’re dating a human being, so I’m one hundred per-fucking-cent certain that he’s going to know she’s not you, or that he can’t replace you with her. If he’s really made all this progress that you keep bragging about, then he’s not apt to be fucking around with some other woman just because she looks like you. Also, maybe you need to work on your trust issues.

Ana sees Dr. Flynn go into the apartment building. Someone who is current on the state of mandated reporting, let me know here… doesn’t Dr. Flynn have to call the police? Isn’t it required of him, by law, to report if someone is having a breakdown and has gone through all the steps necessary (like acquiring a firearm and tracking down a target) to commit a murder? For what it’s worth, in the text it says Dr. Flynn gets out of “a large cruiser,” but it’s never specified that it’s a police cruiser or that any law enforcement officers are there. Just Dr. Flynn and a woman in blue scrubs.

After some more of Ana feeling sorry for herself, Ethan walks her back to the Escala – because Christian left them with no ride. When she gets there, Christian is pissed off because she didn’t follow his orders and come right back to the apartment:

He’s angry with me? He’s the one that just spent God knows how long with his loony ex-girlfriend, and he’s angry with me?

First of all, you know how long he spent with her, you were watching the apartment building the whole time, and second, fuck you, Ana. It’s not like he went on a date with another woman, he was with someone he clearly fucked up, and he was trying to make the situation right. Just because he went about it in a stupid, self-important way doesn’t really minimize the fact that he’s trying to help. Sorry that his attention was diverted from you for a few fucking minutes.

“Have you been drinking?” he asks, appalled.

“Always,” Jen says, rolling her eyes. Christian lifts his hand to spank her, and she slams the book closed, because she is having none of that nonsense.

Ana is bit drunk, by-the-by, and she decides to let all her insecurities out right then and there:

“I went for a drink or three with Ethan while you attended to your ex,” I hiss at him. “I didn’t know how long you were going to be… with her.”

I shake my head. “I’m no good for you.”

She goes on to say that she can’t be everything he needs, and she knows that now that she saw him with Leila. Then he says what I’ve been saying for most of this fucking chapter:

“Why do you do this to me? This is not about you, Ana. It’s about her. ” He takes a sharp breath, running his hand through his hair again. “Right now she’s a very sick girl.”

This is not enough for Ana, and Christian goes into full-on panic mode, absolutely sure she’s breaking up with him. Then he falls on the ground and goes into submissive mode, and the chapter of hilarious, overwrought, stupid, stupid needless drama ends.

Okay, I’m going to be straight with you, before we dive into the recap like you’re not supposed to dive into your ass. I am about to abuse my readership with a sinister ulterior motive. My kid is doing this fundraiser thing. The whole point is to raise money to go to Mackinac Island for a few days and learn about Michigan history. If you support educational trips, or Michigan, or me getting rid of my kid for a few days, or you’re a Somewhere In Time fan who just spazzes out about anything to do with Mackinac Island, then check out this (fundraiser over) and see if there’s anything you could use that would help some lucky writer get three whole kidless days while her son is stranded on an island that doesn’t allow automobiles.

Now, here is the thing, I don’t want you to think, “Jesus, she just did that really manipulative thing where she promised us more recaps if we raised a thousand bucks for her stranded friend, now she’s trying to bilk us for more cash?” No. Not at all. I have nothing to emotionally blackmail you with this time. It’s not like I’m going to withhold recaps from you or anything. I’m just thinking of this as more like United States of Tara, where her daughter dresses up like a mythological Norse princess and sits in cake for perverts to masturbate to, and then they buy things off her Amazon.com wishlist. I realize that I just made myself a sexy teen and you guys a bunch of perverts, but overlook that for a second, will you?

Wait a minute, did anyone else see that show? Didn’t she meet a weird kinky billionaire doing the webcam stuff? Like, he was looking to jack off to her, but then he wanted an emotional connection? Oh my god, is 50 Shades plagiarized off United States of Tara too? I completely forgot what we were talking about before.

Oh, right. Anyway, I’m not emotionally blackmailing you. I’m just suggesting that if you’re in the mood for catalogue candy or emotionally distant Christmas gifts for the people in your office or family members you don’t like, that link might be handy. I think it’s US shipping only, though.

Anyway, the link I really want to concentrate on today is this HILARIOUS news, courtesy of The Guardian, in which E.L. states:

“I’ve actually written myself into the book; I play a very tiny cameo role and I might try and do that if I’m asked to … we’ll see,” she said, adding: “It’d be interesting to know if people can find me in the books.” 

I have a theory of my own. E.L. wrote herself into the book as Ana’s subconscious. I’ve solved the mystery, folks. She has glasses and a sour expression. That’s who it is. But I would love to know your theories in the comments.

The article linked above also holds this nugget in a biscuit:

“I have three people who could play Christian and I think four who could play Ana, and I’m not going to tell you any of them.”

“I have three people who could play Christian, and they’re all Robert Pattinson in Cosmopolis, and I think four who could play Ana, but I can’t tell you their names because they don’t exist because Ana is ME, DAMN YOU! ME!”

Okay, so where we last left Ana and Christian, they were in Christian’s apartment and Mrs. Lincoln, AKA Mrs. Robinson, has just shown up totally unannounced and they’re waiting for her to get out of the elevator. Ana asks Christian if he talked to her, and he says that he did, and he told her he didn’t like her going behind his back. Ana asks why Mrs. Robinson is there, and Christian says he has “no idea,” but I’m pretty sure I know why. It’s because no one in this book has any sense of boundaries.

Taylor comes in and actually announces Mrs. Robinson like he’s the Major Domo of the living room or some shit. Ana immediately feels insecure:

Why is she so damned attractive? She’s dressed entirely in black: tight jeans, a shirt that emphasizes her perfect figure, and a halo of bright, glossy hair.

Being blonde isn’t an item of clothing, Ana, you can’t be dressed in it. Also, bright glossy hair isn’t black. I always wonder how long it will take me to find the first badly constructed sentence in each chapter, and I think this one set a record by being on the first page.

Mrs. Robinson has no freaking clue why Ana would be there:

She gapes at me in shock, frozen to the spot. She blinks before finding her soft voice. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you had company, Christian. It’s Monday,” she says as if this explains why she’s here.

Chedward is basically like “Duh, girlfriend,” and Ana shows her up, I guess:

“Of course. Hello, Anastasia. I didn’t know you’d be here. I know you don’t want to talk to me. I accept that.”

“Do you?” I assert quietly, gazing at her and taking all of us by surprise.

Now, I understand what this is saying, that Ana matches Mrs. Robinson in a game of wits or power or something here, but I don’t see why it says that. After all, you can’t assert something quietly, can you? It would be like when Liz Lemon thought she was being bullied, and she muttered all her comebacks at the bullies. It’s not assertive at all.

“Do you want a drink?”

Oh. Well, he can do that, too.

Christian gets everyone wine while Ana tries to decide if she should stay for their conversation or leave.  She decides to stay, even though the entire room just dropped about twenty degrees in the space between her and Mrs. Robinson. Elena is hesitant to discuss her problem in front of Ana, but Christian makes it clear that there are no secrets between them. Turns out, Mrs. Robinson is being blackmailed, probably because there aren’t enough subplots in this fucking book already.

Let’s count them, shall we?

SUBPLOTS SO FAR IN 50 SHADES DARKER

1. Leila the sub trying to murder Ana and/or Christian.
2. Ana’s boss trying to get into her pants.
3. SIP’s takeover by Grey Holdings Inc. Transworld LLC
4. Elena being blackmailed
5. Mrs. Jones and Taylor carrying on a hot affair. Okay, maybe not this last one.

Holy shit. Not what I expected out of her mouth. Christian stiffens. Has someone found out about her penchant for beating and fucking underage boys? I suppress my revulsion, and a fleeting thought about chickens coming home to roost crosses my mind.

Why are you suppressing your revulsion, Ana? On the list of things it’s okay to have revulsion about, having sex with kids is pretty high up. Above ten, certainly. Above five, let’s say. Okay. Having sex with kids is the worst thing a person can do. So, feel as disgusted and utterly repulsed as you want, Ana. I’m on your side.

Mrs. Robinson gets out a letter, and Christian won’t touch it because he doesn’t want to get his fingerprints on it. Ana is still wondering if this has something to do with underaged boys. Ana wants to go, but Christian ain’t having it:

I try to retrieve my hand from Christian’s grasp, but he just tightens his hold and turns to gaze at me.

Creeeeeepy. Why does Ana need to stand there and hear Mrs. Robinson’s personal business? Ana tells Christian she’s tired and she wants to go to bed, but what she really does is stand in the hallway and eavesdrop. The good news is, even though Elena came over with a pretty fucking dire problem, the second Ana is ready to eavesdrop, the conversation turns to her:

“She knows me better than anyone.”

“Ouch! That hurts.”

“It’s the truth, Elena. I don’t have to play games with her. And I mean it, leave her alone.”

“What is her problem?”

“You… what we were. What we did. She doesn’t understand.”

“Make her understand.”

Whoa, what the fuck. Here the rapist (and notice, I have consistently referred to Mrs. Robinson as a rapist, commenter on the last post who tried to assert that I have some kind of blinders on to the rampant evil that is “female privilege”) is trying to make the victim apologize for his own rape to his new girlfriend. Because this book wasn’t fucked up enough.

They talk about his bad self-image for a few lines, then Mrs. Robinson says:

“Have a little faith in yourself. You really are quite a catch. I’ve told you often enough. And she seems lovely, too. Strong. Someone to stand up to you.”

I can’t hear Christian’s response. So I’m strong, am I?

Yeah, you didn’t hear literally every side character praise you for that already? Because it’s happened about sixty or seventy times, and the interesting thing is, you’ve yet to display one example of this supposed strength. It’s certainly not emotional or intellectual. I’m guessing she can lift a car over her head?

Mrs. Robinson asks Christian if he misses going into the playroom, and he kicks her out. Well, they have a boring argument in which he reasserts how much Ana means to him, and then he kicks Mrs. Robinson out. So, the entire blackmail subplot seems to have been a stupid way to try and either add tension to the plot, which didn’t work, or to give us exposition on how Christian feels about Ana, which was unnecessary. One might go so far as to put forth that for the author of a Mary Sue, it is unthinkable to go a few pages without reasserting the wonderfulness of her idealized self, but that’s only if one is slightly into snarking fanfic. Ahem.

Before Elena leaves, Christian asks if Welch should check out this whole blackmail thing. But isn’t Welch tirelessly searching for Leila the danger sub? Ana isn’t worried about that, she’s trying to make sure Elena isn’t moving in for the kill:

I listen to them bickering, trying to figure this out. They do sound like old friends, as Christian says. Just friends. And she cares about him – maybe too much. Well, would anybody who knew him not care?

I gaze up at him, trying to frame my question. “Will you tell me alla bout her? I am trying to understand why you think she helped you.” I pause, thinking carefully about my next sentence. “I loathe her, Christian. It hink she did you untold damage. You have no friends. Did she keep them away from you?”

He sighs and runs his hand through his hair.

“Why the fuck do you want to know about her? We had a very long-standing affair, she beat the shit out of me often, and I fucked her in all sorts of ways you can’t even imagine, end of story.”

Ladies, this is the romantic hero of your dreams. Who hasn’t wanted their boyfriend to say the exact same thing to them about his ex and all the hot sex they had back in the day?

After his blowup, Christian calms down a little and asks her what she wants to know. So, of course she can’t ask him now, and insists she’s not jealous:

“I’m not jealous.” I’m wounded that he would think that – or am I? Shit. Maybe that’s what this is.

That’s what this is. Mystery solved, everybody. No need to thank me.

Christian tells Ana he’s been in love with her since her trip to Georgia:

“I loved you then, Anastasia,” he whispers. “You’re the only person I’d fly three thousand miles to see.”

Whether you want me to or not.

“Ironically, it was Elena who pointed it out to me. She encouraged me to go to Georgia.”

That’s not what irony means. Also, I wonder if she did that to try and sabotage the relationship. “Yeah, I’ll send him to Georgia, see? And then she’ll get freaked out by how stalkery he is, see? And then she’ll dump him, because no dame in her right mind would keep going out with a fella who dogs her all the way to her mother’s house. Yeah, yeah, that’s the ticket!”

“Look, Anastasia, as I said to her, she’s part of my past. You are my future. Don’t let her come between us, please. And quite frankly, I’m really bored of this subject. I’m going to do some work.” He stands and gazes down at me. “Let it go. Please.”

Yeah, Ana, let it go, because he’s bored of this particular relationship problem, even if it’s unresolved for you.

Christian tells Ana that, oh, by the way, her new car came a day early, but she can’t drive it because Leila might be hiding in the glove box or something. It’s just safer for Sawyer to follow her everywhere. Christian also puts another restriction on her work day: if she’s going to leave the building, she has to call him. He makes a jab about not being able to trust her, which is hilarious coming from a guy who keeps files on everyone he fucked.

Can we ever have a normal conversation without it disintegrating into an argument? It’s exhausting.

No shit, you should try blogging about it some time.

Ana has the fucking staggering realization that maybe moving in with someone you’ve only been dating for a little over a week might be a really stupid idea, but I’m not going to bore you with that because we all know that they’re going to end up moving in together, anyway, and it’s going to be the most perfect love ever recorded in prose.

Ana goes out onto the balcony to dramatically think about her relationship:

With a heavy sigh and a last glance at Seattle spread like cloths of gold at my feet, I decide to call Ray.

Because everyone knows that when you’re looking at a romantic vista, the first thing you think is, “I should call my dad.”

Ana calls her dad, and they chat very briefly, and it ends like this:

“Love you, Dad.”

“Love you, too, Annie.”

I hang up and check my watch. It’s only ten. Because of our discussion, I am feeling strangely innervated and restless.

She’s obviously talking about the discussion she had with Christian, but it’s phrased like she’s talking about the discussion with her father, in which he told her about a soccer match (because beer drinking, hard-fishin’, all-American sumbitches like Ray are really into soccer) and she says things are going good with Christian, and that is like, all. Which is funny. Pronoun confusion is funny.

In the mirror, I look like a 1930’s movie star. It’s long, elegant – and very un-me.

You can’t do that. You can’t be like, “I look like a movie star,” in one sentence, and then be all sad trombone noise of ugliness and despair in the next one. No one is buying it, Ana. Downplaying your attractiveness doesn’t make you more sympathetic to the reader, especially when you’re always doing it on the heels of telling us how amazing you look.

The library is where the pool table is, so when Ana goes looking for a book, she ends up getting all flushy at the memory of having sex in there. She also finds the ruler, which she picks up and thwacks on her palm, while lamenting:

Why can’t I take a little more pain for my man?

I’m sorry, I just rage blacked out for a second. Did I miss anything?

Ana picks Rebecca to read, and while she’s reading she falls asleep, because that is a very boring book. Well, that’s not what it says in the text, it’s just more my commentary on that book. Inaccessible and dry, and this is coming from a Melville fan, okay? But it’s kind of funny, since Rebecca is basically an AU fanfic of Jane Eyre.

Anyway, Christian has to come in and find Ana and carry her to bed, where hours later she wakes from “a disturbing dream” and hears the piano playing. Yes, again. And she goes out and watches Christian play as he sits in his “bubble of light.” Yes, again. Although Ana says:

The whole scene looks different somehow, and I realize that the piano lid is down, giving me an unhindered view.

Oh, well, if the piano lid is down this time, that changes everything, and I can totally pretend I didn’t already read this scene twice already. When he’s done playing, he looks up and says:

“Do you have any idea how desirable you look at this moment?” he says, his voice soft.

Do you mean, does she have any idea how desirable she looks in the nightgown you bought her, Christian? Thanks for propping up my theory about the “Do you have any idea”s.

“Why do we fight?” he whispers, as his teeth graze my earlobe.

Because you’re both emotionally stunted people who have no clue what a healthy relationship looks like because the only examples you’ve had are a mother who is a serial monogamist and an older women who molested you, and you’re both trying to skip over any internal growth or healing in the interest of speeding to what you view as the finish line of the relationship? This is just off the top of my head.

Of course, the author can’t acknowledge this, because it doesn’t fit in with her Mary Sue NANOWRIMO, so instead, they get hit with insta-lust and forget what they were fighting about.

“You feel so fine under this material, and I can see everything – even this.” He tugs gently on my pubic hair through the fabric, making me gasp, while his other hand fists in my hair at my nape.

Hey, no fisting. It’s in the sex contract. The pube pulling is fine, though. If that’s what you’re into.

Suddenly he rises, startling me, and he lifts me onto the piano. My feet rest on the keys, sounding discordant, disjointed notes, and his hands skim up my legs and part my knees.

Well, someone has been watching Pretty Woman while they write, haven’t they?

The lid is hard and uncompromising against my back. He lets go and pushes my legs open wider, my feet dancing over the keys, over the lower and higher notes.

Then he goes down on her on the piano, which so didn’t happen in Pretty Woman, so this scene isn’t like that scene at all. Except for the tortured young billionaire who wants to take over a company and build something positive, rather than destroy it. And the whole sex as a business transaction thing. And the emotional distance that seems impossible to overcome, due to the hero’s control freak nature.

Juuuuuuuust saying.

Christian gets up on top of the piano, and they fuck up there. Which is not a great idea, piano owners. Just a heads up, while those lids are strong, they’re not made to bear the weight of two idiots vigorously humping.

After the aforementioned humping, Ana tells Christian that she would have brought him coffee or tea when he was working, but she didn’t know what he liked.

“Oh, I see. Water or wine in the evening, Ana. Though maybe I should try tea.”

He only has water or wine because he’s Christ. This entire thing is an allegory for how religion beats up on women. I see it so clearly now.

The alarm goes off with the six a.m. traffic news, and I am rudely awakened form my disturbing dream of overly blonde and dark-haired women. I can’t grasp what it’s about, and I’m immediately distracted because Christian Grey is wrapped around me like silk, his unruly-haired head on my chest, his hand on my breast, his leg over me, holding me down.

I like how Christian has become the literal interpretation of an anchor, because it makes my job here a lot easier. Why does Ana consider being awakened from a bad dream being rude? Did she want to linger in her strange hell dream where other women dare to exist? But at least she’s only extending her subconscious hatred toward overly blonde and dark-haired women. If your hair is red, or light brown, or ashy blonde, you’re probably okay. But ROFLMAO to the fact that she just can’t figure out what that dream could possibly mean. It’s not like she doesn’t spend every moment of every day obsessing over all the women who might steal her boyfriend away.

When Christian wakes, Ana asks him if he still has nightmares, and if so,

“What are your nightmares about?”

Well, gee, Ana, I sure don’t know. As a toddler he was once left alone for days with the decomposing corpse that used to be his mommy. I just don’t know what his nightmares could possibly be about.

Christian tells Ana that he’s never cried before, and then Ana thinks the subject is too dark for that early in the morning, which makes me wonder why she asked in the first place. After all, it’s not like she doesn’t know Christian’s history, or that terrible shit happened to him. What did she honestly think a question like, “What are your nightmares about?” would result in?

She asks him if he has any good memories, and he spins her this heartwarming tale:

“I recall the crack whore baking. I remember the smell. A birthday cake, I think. For me. And then there’s Mia’s arrival with my mom and dad. My mom was worried about my reaction, but I adored baby Mia immediately. My first word was Mia. I remember my first piano lesson. Miss Kathie, my tutor, was awesome. She kept horses, too.” He smiles wistfully.

“You said your mom saved you. How?”

His reverie is broken, and he gazes at me as if I don’t understand the elementary math of two plus two.

Dude, you clearly don’t. You finally get him talking about happier times, and then you immediately bring it right back to, “Hey, remember when you got adopted because your real mom o.d.ed and you ended up stuck in an apartment with her dead body for days? Let’s talk about that some more.”

Christian tells her a little about his adopted mom, but says that it’s too early in the morning for this bullshit to be so deep, and he changes the subject with sex. A merciful cutaway saves us from simultaneous orgasms on command (but not from “Oh, what I’d like to do to you,” and repeated uses of “Miss Steele”), and then it’s time for breakfast with Mrs. Jones.

Ana asks Christian when she’s going to see the personal trainer (remember, that was a part of the contract, that she had to train with Christian’s “Olympic champion” kickboxing trainer, and BTW, still no kickboxing at the Olympics), and Christian says he’ll check with Andrea:

“Andrea?”

“My PA.”

Oh yes. “One of your many blondes,” I tease him.

SHE IS JUST TEASING, SEE SHE IS NOT INSECURE IN THE FACE OF BLONDE WOMEN!

“She’s not mine. She works for me. You’re mine.”

“I work for you,” I mutter sourly.

Well, then he’s obviously cheating on you with her. You two should break up before this book gets any longer.

Christian and Ana talk about the piano sex in front of Mrs. Jones, but they do it in an almost Navajo Windtalkers code that no one could possibly crack:

I glance behind me at the piano, savoring the memory of last night. “You put the lid of the piano back up.”

“I closed it last night so as not to disturb you. Guess it didn’t work, but I’m glad it didn’t.” Christian’s lips twitch into a lascivious smile as he takes a bite of omelet. I go crimson and smirk back at him.

Yeah, Mrs. Jones probably didn’t pick any of that up.

By the way, is anyone else imagining Mrs. Jones as Shirley Jones in Grandma’s Boy?

I give her a shy smile, which she reciprocates warmly before leaving the great room. I suspect it’s to give us some privacy.

Or she just wants to get the hell out of there before she has to listen to more of your barely disguised sex talk.

IT’S CAN BE CONVERSATIONS TIMES:

“Can I ask you something?” I turn back to Christian.

His amused expression slips. “Of course.”

“And you won’t be angry?”

“Is it about Elena?”

“No.”

“Then I won’t be angry.”

“But now I have a supplementary question.”

“Oh?”

“Which is about her.”

He rolls his eyes. “What?” he says, and now he’s exasperated.

“Why do you get so mad when I ask you about her?”

Is that the supplementary question, or a question wholly unrelated to what she’s going to ask and then follow up with the supplementary question? Also, why should Christian be mad at Ana for bringing up Mrs. Robinson? It’s not Ana’s fault that Mrs. Robinson keeps trying to shoe horn herself into Christian and Ana’s relationship. She’s trying to squeeze into them like a pair of jeans from her high school days she’s bound and determined to wear to the class reunion, and it just ain’t happening, but no one wants to tell her that while she’s wrenching on the zipper with forceps.

“Honestly?”

I scowl at him. “I thought you were always honest with me.”

 “I endeavor to be.”

I narrow my eyes at him. “That sounds like a very evasive answer.”

“I am always honest with you, Ana. I don’t want to play games. Well, not those sorts of games,” he qualifies, as his eyes heat. 

Let’s just take a look at Christian’s track record with honesty, shall we? And we’re going to do it with a little meme known as Scumbag Steve. Scumbag Steve, take it away!

“You’re kidding… For a scene… When did he tell you this?” Christian chuckles, almost reluctantly. “No, don’t worry. You don’t have to apologize. I’m glad there’s a logical explanation. It did seem a ridiculously low amount of money… I have no doubt you’ve something evil and creative planned for your revenge. Poor Isaac.”

And so on, until Ana asks who it was and Christian says she doesn’t want to know. I’ve tried to make it very clear that I’m not a professional detective, but let me just state again, in case you mistakenly attribute my keen instincts to some kind of specialized training in the field of criminal science, that even though I figured this mystery out, I am not, in fact, employed by any law enforcement agency, nor do I solve crimes for money. Shocking, I know. Here’s another mind blower: the entire blackmail subplot really was just a device to further explore how great Ana is and how Christian’s love for her is super strong. That’s it. A huge chunk of this chapter, a new subplot, and for nothing. Handily wrapped up once Ana and Christian have an opportunity to fight about it and fuck some more. You should definitely feel mind violated right now.

Ana gets in to work and chats with Claire the receptionist, who is black and therefore not a threat in the way every other woman in the story is. You think I’m kidding?

“Your boyfriend is so dreamy, Ana,” she says, her eyes glazing over.

I am tempted to roll my eyes at her.

“He’s not bad-looking.” I smile and we both start laughing.

Now, compare that reaction to the reaction Ana has had any time a white girl has thought Christian is attractive. Ana isn’t giving Claire a bitchy nickname. She isn’t criticizing her at all. In fact, she has a laugh with her about how sexy Christian is. If Claire were a white girl with blonde hair, this scenario would be a lot different, and what that tells me is that Ana doesn’t find women of color to be in her league in terms of attractiveness and man-catching abilities. Or maybe Ana doesn’t think Christian will stray across race lines, or maybe she doesn’t think women of color are worthy of her boyfriend? There really is a lot of weird racial stuff in these books, isn’t there?

Jack Hyde is super crabby, and he tells Ana to be alert for any clue as to what is going on with upper management, because he senses change on the wind. But he manages to do it in the most misogynistic way possible:

“There’s something going on at senior management level, and I don’t know what it is. Keep your ear to the ground, okay? If you hear anything – I know how you girls talk.” He grins at me, and I feel slightly sick. He has no idea how we “girls” talk. Besides, I know what’s happening.

Of course, knowing what’s happening brings up this other important point:

Oh, it’s hard being in the know. What will he do when he finds out? My blood runs cold. Something tells me Jack will be annoyed.

Something tells me your boyfriend just got you fired, and here’s why. You come to the company just before it’s purchased by Grey Enterprises Holdings Inc. Water & Supply Wholesale LLC. & Co., and then it does get bought out, and you’re just working as this lowly assistant who, oh hey, happens to be dating the guy who bought the company, guess what, you look like a spy. And even though Christian owns the company, there’s really not a lot he can do to keep one specific low-level employee on the payroll, unless he’s going to obsessively monitor the hirings and firings at SIP and require his approval on each one. Okay, so that’s pretty likely. But still, once the news of this gets out, you’re still going to look like a spy and none of the people you work with are going to trust you. Congratulations, your boyfriend fucked you in the ass, this time without a sex contract.

There is a pointless exchange of emails with Christian, and then a paragraph break until lunchtime, when Jack asks Ana to go and get him lunch. Like a good brainwashed slave, Ana calls Christian to let him know that she’s leaving the building. Which he would probably have known anyway, because remember, he’s having her followed.

“Christian, Jack has asked me to get his lunch.”

“Lazy bastard,” Christian gripes.

Um, excuse me, Mr. Billionaire, who gets your fucking lunch?

“Are you on your own?”

“No, there are six people staring at me right now, wondering who the hell I’m talking to.” 

Shit… “Really?” I gasp, panicked.

“Yes. Really. My girlfriend,” he announces away from the phone.

Holy cow! They probably all thought you were gay, you know.”

Oh, good, I’d missed the whole “It’s a tragedy if someone thinks your gay” thing that we had going for a good clip in the first book. Also, why is she panicking? It doesn’t seem like a panic-type situation.

Christian says “Laters, baby,” and six people in the room with him hear it. So, you know, he’s not embarrassed to say that in front of people. If three of them were women, I guarantee they locked their office doors and masturbated to that.

When I exit seconds later, Sawyer is waiting on the doorstep of the building.

Really? Is he a ghost?

Ghost Sawyer accompanies Ana to the deli, while she thinks about Kate, the roommate who never returned:

I miss Kate. It’s only been two weeks since she left for her vacation, but it feels like the longest two weeks of my life. So much has happened – she’ll never believe me when I tell her. Well, tell her the edit, NDA-compliant version.

Please note, the NDA is not discussed in this book at all. So, if you picked up this book before the first one, you’d have no idea what she’s talking about. Or if you let a long time go by between books. Or if you slipped and hit your head in the shower and lost the part of your brain that remembers the first book. Please tell me, by the way, if you’re a neurosurgeon and you believe such an injury could be possible. Because I’d like to get one.

Ana asks Sawyer where he is when he’s watching her all day, and as it turns out, he’s just sitting in the coffee shop across the street, creepily watching Ana’s building. Ana asks him if he knows what Leila looks like, and if he has a picture, but he says he just remembers what Leila looks like. Since Leila and Ana look so similar, I’m kind of hoping Sawyer accidentally stun guns Ana on her way out at the end of the day.

I’d really like to examine a photograph of Leila to see what she looked like before she became Ghost Girl. I wonder if Christian would let me have a copy? Yes, he probably would – for my safety. I hatch a plan, and my subconscious gloats and nods approvingly.

This is just fuel for my theory that E.L.’s “cameo” is Ana’s subconscious. Only the author of this book would think Ana is really smart for “planning” to ask to see a photograph. Seriously, how much planning does that require? “Hey, Christian, do you have a picture of the girl who’s stalking me, so I can keep an eye out for her?” Done. No planning. But her subconscious finds this so impossibly clever, the only explanation is that the subconscious is the character E.L. admits to having been based off of herself. She spends most of the book making other characters marvel at how smart Ana is, and tells the reader over and over how smart she is, so to self-insert in order to praise Ana for her intelligence isn’t that big of a leap.

Ana takes Jack his lunch and he practically molests her with his eyes, then Ethan calls and arranges to pick up the keys to the apartment from Ana. He says, “Laters,” when they get off the phone, because it’s a fucking epidemic. If anyone you know or love starts saying “Laters,” you must isolate them immediately. If they attack, they can be subdued by removing the head or destroying the brain.

I daydream briefly about what he might do to me but find myself shifting in my chair. My subconscious gazes at me disapprovingly over her half-moon specs – get on with your work.

Holy shit – sun-bleached blond hair, a tan to die for, and glowing hazel eyes gaze up at me from the green leather couch.

That’s a hell of a good-looking couch.

 As soon as he sees me, his mouth drops open and he’s on his feet coming toward me.

Are you still imagining the couch? Because I am. I’m just imagining this green couch with a tan and glowing eyes running toward her on little tiny couch legs.

Ethan gets the keys from Ana and says “Laters” twice during the entire process. There’s a paragraph break, and Ana gets a call from Christian to say he’s waiting downstairs. Then she says goodbye to Jack, who is in a better mood, and she wonders why “he” can’t be that way all the time, but I can’t tell if she’s talking about Jack or Christian, because I can’t trust context clues in a book with this much pronoun confusion.

The Audi is parked at the curb, and Christian climbs out as I approach. He’s taken off his jacket, and he’s wearing his gray pants, my favorite ones that hang from his hips – in that way.

I’ve missed those pants, as well. This entire chapter was like walk down memory lane, if memory lane was in Centralia, PA.

I have to share this with you guys. Because I’m still undoubtedly suffering the effects of both malaria and Dengue fever, with a side of black death, the auge, and consumption. So, when I die from this disease that is causing epic amounts of snot to clog my head (in a tragically romantic fashion like unto the third act of La Boheme), at least it will be with a smile on my face:

Because seriously, without his brilliant idea to scream at a copy of Twilight for numerous videos, I would not have had the idea to do these recaps.

There’s a 50 Shades cooking class now. And a picture of a cupcake with Ben Wa balls on it.

Reader [put the reader’s name here, dummy] left me this link to her hometown newspaper’s interview of E.L. James. She manages to work the word “bemused” into her first answer. But my favorite is this quote, in reply to how she came up with the euphemism “happy trail”:

“I can’t remember. I probably heard it somewhere, who knows. It occurs to you while you’re writing.”

I give her points for not trying to pass “happy trail” off as her own original creation, and I love the acknowledgement that she throws in stuff she probably just heard somewhere, you know? Like, plot points and characters lifted wholesale from another author’s book, that kind of stuff. Song lyrics and shit. Who has time to come up with anything creative these days, am I right?

But it severely pisses me off that they asked her about her sex life. Do people ask male authors about their sex lives when they write sexy books? Not likely, as those are real books, and anything written by a woman is probably about how my wife needs to spice things up for me in the bedroom right after she’s done vacuuming in her pearls, amiright fellas? *Romney-like grin*

Okay, where else am I? Oh, yes, perhaps you should have waited and looked at all that other stuff first, before this link. But it’s too late now, and I’m far too lazy to edit the damn thing. But here is a great link that will make you think and which points out one of the problems with our culture that enables us to live in a world where 50 Shades is an acceptable phenomenon. It’s basically about the old “he only did that because he likes you” saying. Thanks to Bronwyn Green for the link.

And speaking of Bronwyn Green, if you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to have a direct line into my head at all times, well, lucky you, she actually has one of those. It’s called Yahoo messenger, and I frequently annoy her with stream of consciousness musings that pop right out of my melon and directly onto a keyboard I should be using for writing my books. And she gives you a glimpse into her hellish existence as my friend right here.

Okay, onto the recap:

We last left our intrepid band of merry morons playing pool. I actually mistyped that as “playing poop,” but remember, there’s no scat allowed in the sex contract. If Ana wins the game, she gets to go back into the playroom, and if Christian wins, he gets to spank her and fuck her over a billiard table. But, it’s not really a billiard table at all. They’re playing pool. Billiards tables are different. The rails are different, the nap of the baize is different, and it’s substantially longer than a pool table. But I digress, because let’s be honest, if E.L. can’t be bovvered to put in correct details about a sexual lifestyle that is easily researchable on the internet and which makes up the bulk of the conflict in her novel, she’s not going to give a shit about different types of games played with balls and sticks. I’m seriously surprised that she didn’t suggest they could also play baseball on the damned thing.

He doesn’t look like a CEO – he looks like a bad boy from the wrong side of town. Holy cow, he’s so fucking sexy.

Eegods! Great honk! He’s so fucking sexy.

“Depends on how hard you spank me,” I whisper, holding onto my cue for support.

Okay, so here’s the thing. That line? It could have been a pun. Sore loser, spanking, get it? But when she’s whispering it and holding onto an object for support, it becomes more “battered woman” than “playful sex partner.” And Christian does not help that impression with his next lines:

“Well, let’s count your misdemeanors, Miss Steele.” He counts on his long fingers. “One, making me jealous of my own staff. Two, arguing with me about working. and three, waving your delectable derriere at me for the last twenty minutes.”

“Delectable derriere?” Who the fuck is writing this?

I stand paralyzed like a complete zombie, my heart pounding, my blood pumping, not actually able to move a muscle.

So much here is wrong. Let’s just do it in list format:

1. Zombies can move. It’s part of what makes them scary.
2. Zombies probably don’t have heart beats.
3. If your heart is pounding, then you’re moving at least one muscle, also known as your heart.
4. Thanks for thinking we’re all too stupid to understand what “paralyzed” means. It’s a big word and I’m sure we all really needed the help.

 In my mind, all I can think is – this is for him – the thought repeating like a mantra over and over again.

So, here we see our heroine psyching herself up to endure the spanking she’s about to get. The same heroine who just said that if she won, she would opt to engage in some heavier BDSM. So, either way, Christian was going to be the winner in this scenario, and Ana has given up all pretense of sexual agency because he needs it more.

Something that I’ve noticed happening a lot in this series is, when they’re about to have sex, they take a really, really long time getting down to business. There has to be some witty banter here, a dash of dysfunction there, but they can’t just be like, “Let’s have sex!” “Okay!” about it. For example, here:

“Clothes, Anastasia. You appear to still be wearing them. Take them off – or I will do it for you.”

“You do it.” I finally find my voice, and it sounds low and heated. Christian grins.

“Oh, Miss Steele. It’s a dirty job, but I think I can rise to the challenge.”

“You normally rise to most challenges, Mr. Grey.” I raise an eyebrow at him, and he smirks.

“Why, Miss Steele, whatever do you mean?”

Are they trying to avoid having sex? Going for a world record for “most cliches in a single pre-sex conversation?” What is the point here, besides an author patting herself on the back for making her characters so amazingly clever and coy? And if any man ever said that undressing me was a “dirty” job, I’d be giving him the side eye so fucking hard. Dirty? Excuse me? Besides, Ana showers more than any human being I’ve ever read about, and I once read a nonfiction book about clinically germ phobic people.

Chedward undresses her while she thinks about how much she luuuuurves him, and then there is some truly SCANDALOUS language, dear readers, so have some pearls nearby in the event that you need something to clutch:

Oh my. He kisses me… there.

FETCH MY SMELLING SALTS AND A FAINTING COUCH! I FEAR MY FRAGILE FEMALE VAGINA MIGHT TURN ITSELF FAIRLY INSIDE OUT AT SUCH EXPLICIT DETAIL!

“Safeword?” I murmur.

“No, no safeword, just tell me to stop, and I’ll stop. Understand?” 

That sounds totally safe and reasonable. After all, when you’ve asked him to stop doing things in the past, he’s totally respected your wishes, right? You were all, “Stop giving me expensive gifts,” and he totally did, and then you were like, “Stop stalking me,” and he definitely didn’t fly all the way to Georgia and watch you while you spent the day with your mother, right? You even said, “I don’t want to do this whole pain thing anymore,” and he totally… I’m not sure I’m accurately conveying the depths of my sarcasm here. But I’m using a Mariana Trench worth of it, I assure you.

Christian makes her promise to tell him to stop, with this epic gem of shitworthiness stuffed into the conversation:

“We’re lovers, Anastasia. Lovers don’t need safewords.”

Is this one of those, “Love means never having to say you’re sorry,” lines that people completely fall for, but if they took a goddamned minute to think about what they just heard, they’d be like, “Oh, no, that’s total bull shit, isn’t it?” Even Ana seems to know that it’s total bullshit:

“I guess not,’ I murmur. How do I know?

Chedward picks up a pool cue, and Ana thinks:

Oh fuck, what’s he going to do with that?

Which is really only a feeling one should have when watching scenes from Game of Thrones which involve two prostitutes and King Joffrey.

“You play well, Miss Steele. I must say I’m surprised. Why don’t you sink the black?”

First of all, it’s the eight ball. People in America call it the eight ball. And second, how is she supposed to sink it? You just won the game, meaning that the eight ball is already done sunk. Seriously, could she not even visit the wikipedia page for “pool”?

I position the white ball.

The cue ball. It’s called a fucking cue ball. E.L. James has never played a game of pool in her life. And I went back through and tried to find the part where Christian took the eight or “black” ball back out of the pocket and dropped it on the table. He never does. Is E.L. James under the impression that there is more than one eight ball in a game of pool?

I don’t know why this is bugging me more than the “love means never having to safeword” nonsense, but damnit, it does. They keep calling the eight ball, in dialogue and in Ana’s narrative, “The black.” I keep thinking they’re talking about the fucking Night’s Watch.

Christian has an ulterior motive for this whole, “sink the black,” thing he’s got going on:

“I don’t care if you hit or miss, baby. I just wanted to see you like this – partially dressed, stretched out on my billiard table. Do you have any idea how hot you look at this moment?”

Do you have any idea, reader, how many times we’ve read some variation of “Do you have any idea how sexy/hot/perfect/beautiful/alluring/etc.” in this book? Why does he keep asking her this?

 I flush, and my inner goddess grabs a rose between her teeth and starts to tango.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: that bitch can do anything.

So, Ana misses the shot. Which is actually described as “the white” hitting “the black” and I begin to wonder if there is some coded Aryan message in all of this. But that might be the influence of my new haircut. And if you don’t get that because you come here and just read the recaps and not the rest of the stuff I post, then you don’t deserve that amazing callback I just did because for shame. But back to the point, once again. Not “the white.” Cue ball. Not “the black.” Eight ball.

He strolls to the end of the table, sets up the black  ball again, then runs the white ball back down to me. He looks so carnal, dark-eyed with a lascivious smile. How could I ever resist him? I catch the ball and line it up, ready to strike.

That is how fingers get pinched, friends, by rolling pool balls back and forth on a pool table. Heads up.

She keeps trying to make the shot while he keeps spanking her every time she misses. And he spanks her with a ruler. Because he’s a grown man and he left his ruler laying around in the rec room.

I marvel once more at how I have managed – and yes, enjoyed – what he’s done to me up to this point. It’s so dark but so him.

It’s not that dark to get spanked and fucked on a pool table. That’s actually the kind of funny sex more people probably wish they had. But let’s concentrate on this whole “I’m trying to talk myself into liking my boyfriend’s sexual fetish” thing you’ve got going on there, Ana.

I hear the telltale rip of foil, then he’s standing behind me, between my legs, pushing them wider.

Has anyone else noticed that a “rip of foil” or “he produces a foil packet” etc. have become shorthand for “We are going to have intercourse now?” It’s in every single scene. It never says, “he put on a condom,” or “he sheathed himself,” (my personal favorite, by the way, I think I tend to use it a lot), but it’s always something about the foil, to clue us in that they’re just about to go full P in V.

“Your cheek is pink from the baize,” he murmurs, rubbing my face tenderly.

Let’s do an experiment here, shall we?

 So, there. In my data sample of 1, that’s the answer we’re going with. Normal 25 – 35 year olds do not know that it’s called “baize.” “I would have to go out on a limb,” says Joe, “that most people don’t know that it’s called baize.”

Which also handily moves us on to my next point: Christian Grey is not people.

“You never fail, Ana. You are beautiful, bright, challenging, fun, sexy, and I thank Divine Providence every day that it was you who came to interview me and not Katherine Kavanagh.”

OMG. LOL. Seriously? If you ran Ana headfirst through a combination Mary Sue-O-Meter/woodchipper, this is where the damn thing would get clogged. I refuse to believe this was written by an adult female. It reads like it was written by a mousy thirteen-year-old who is so going to show those popular girls someday. And I should fucking know because that’s primarily what fueled my early writing. But you know what? I grew the fuck up and grew out of needing people to tell me that they hate every other girl who isn’t me because my self-esteem is so damaged that it’s the only way I can like myself. I can now coexist peacefully with all manner of vagina-bearing people without feeling like the only way I can be happy with the relationship I am in is if my boyfriend makes it good and clear that he thinks I’m prettier and worth more than my roommate.

Christian is massaging my feet, one at a time.

How would he massage both at the same time? I suppose it’s possible. But super awkward.

Ana asks if Sawyer can just drop her off at work, instead of coming in with her, and Christian is okay with that, provided she never, ever leaves the building. Which is probably going to be really easy to pull off since she’s someone’s assistant. Those jobs never require leaving the building to do some menial task the boss would rather not get out of his chair for.

I stretch out in bed, so tired. It’s only ten thirty, but it feels like three in the morning. This has to be one of the most exhausting weekends of my life.

No shit. You’ve eaten out twice, had sex three times, went sailing, bought a car, played pool, bathed twice, got into a few conversations where your relationship hung in the balance… and that was just today. Yesterday, you went to a gala fundraiser and almost got murdered by your boyfriend’s ex, resulting in a late-night flight to a hotel you had to drive obscenely out of the way to get to. No wonder you’re exhausted.

The alarm goes off at 6:30 AM, and Ana thinks:

“It’s set so early.”

I’m sure you’ll be weeping tears of blood for poor Ana, having to get up at the inhumane hour of 6:30 next time your alarms go off at 6:30 and earlier.

Christian and Ana grab some breakfast courtesy of Mrs. Jones. Like, real breakfast, bacon, pancakes, etc. So, of course Ana is super appreciative of it:

“Oh, thank you. Good morning,” I mumble. Jeez – I could get used to this.

JUST SHUT UP AND BE HAPPY YOU’RE EATING PANCAKES, BITCH. I really want pancakes, and I don’t have any. I’ve also got pork chops in the crock pot actively thwarting any chance of me getting pancakes tonight, too, so shut up and enjoy every damn bite.

Hey, wait a minute. Mrs. Robinson. Mrs. Jones. I sense a theme.

Oh, and before we go on, I want to let you know that at the start of the scene, Ana takes another shower. Even though she took a bath right before bed the night before. Her skin must be super dry, yo.

Mrs. Jones offers to pack a lunch for Ana, and she’s able to muster up at least a little gratitude for the housekeeper’s efforts this time:

“Please, Mrs. Jones, call me Ana.”

“Ana.” She smiles and turns to make me tea.

Wow… this is so cool.

I turn and cock my head at Christian, challenging him – go on accuse me of flirting with Mrs. Jones.

Right?! I rarely get a chance to say this (because this book is horrible), but point for Ana!

“I have to go, baby. Taylor will come back and drop you at work with Sawyer.”

Are you sure she’s not going to go sex crazy and fuck them on the drive over? Will they be wearing their chastity belts?

Ana makes it clear that the bodyguards are only to accompany her to the door of her building, and Christian agrees, but you and I both know he’s lying about that and he’s going to have her stalked like the stalkingest stalker to ever stalk somebody. Christian says “Laters, baby,” and a bunch of suburban moms run to their cars to rub one out before their kids’ dance recitals are over, because OMG LATERS BABY.

Once Christian is gone, Ana makes small talk with the housekeeper while Mrs. Jones packs her a lunch:

“You know, I can do that,” I mutter, embarrassed that she should be doing this for me.

“You eat your breakfast, Ana. This is what I do. I enjoy it. It’s nice to look after someone  other than Mr. Taylor and Mr. Grey.” She smiles very sweetly at me.

Yeah, and in her head, she’s thinking, “Oh, yeah. Sure, go ahead and make your own lunch. You could clean the apartment, too, and I’ll just go sit outside and wait for the unemployment checks after you make my job entirely unnecessary. Maybe you could try to kill yourself in front of me, too, because that’s another aspect of my job I really enjoy.”

Ana takes her sack lunch and goes to the car, where Taylor is waiting:

“Taylor, I’m sorry about yesterday and my inappropriate remarks. I hope I didn’t get you into trouble.”

Taylor frowns in bemusement at me from the rearview mirror as he pulls out into the Seattle traffic.

“Miss Steele, I’m rarely in trouble,” he says reassuringly.

And then she climbs over the seat and they just go to town on each other.

Obviously not, because then this book would be readable. No, instead they go to Ana’s work, where she makes chitchat with her boss, then gets down to business.

I nod and sit down at my computer. It seems like years since I was at work.

Yeah, no shit. It’s felt like years for me, too.

I switch on my computer and fire up my e-mail program – and of course there’s an email from Christian.

Of course there is. If he can’t keep you on a physical leash, he’ll settle for an electronic one. Christian tells her via email that he had a great weekend and he hopes she’ll never leave, and that the news about SIP being purchased by his company is embargoed, so she should delete his email immediately. Or, maybe he shouldn’t have mentioned the embargo in an email at all, since it’s monitored and he knows that. But all of this flies right over Ana’s head, because when Christian tells her he hopes she’ll never leave, this is how she interprets it:

Hope I never leave? Does he want me to move in?

Okay, okay, in fairness to Ana, she also thinks:

Holy Moses… I barely know the man. I press delete.

So, at least she acknowledges that it’s stupid for him to want her to move in when they’ve only known each other for five weeks and have really only been officially dating for a few days.

Ana’s boss comes out and tells her that she is going to have to go with him to a conference in New York. You know, that kind of shit actually does happen in the publishing world. People take their assistants all kinds of places. They also take friends who they claim are their assistants all kinds of places, because if you say “friend” companies balk at paying their fees, but if you say, “My personal assistant, Jill,” they will usually shell out some dinero. Right, Jill?

Where was I? Oh, yeah. So, Ana is going to have to go to New York for her job:

“Yes. We’ll need to go Wednesday and stay overnight. I think you’ll find it a very educational experience.” His eyes darken as he says this, but his smile is polite.

E.L. didn’t write it into the story line, but I have it on good authority he also twiddled his oily handlebar mustache when he said this.

Crap. I wander back to my desk. This is not going to go down well with Fifty – but the fact is, I want to go. It sounds like a real opportunity, and I’m sure I can keep Jack at arm’s length if that’s his ulterior motive.

So, Ana wants to go to this thing, but she thinks Christian is going to be pissed. And then she gets an email response from Christian saying explicitly that he wants her to move in with him.

He does want me to move in. Oh, Christian – it’s too soon. I put my head in my hands to try and recover my wits. This is all I need after my extraordinary weekend. I haven’t had a moment to myself to think through and understand all that I have experienced and discovered these last two days.

That’s the plan, Ana. If Christian can keep you constantly unhinged by simply speeding through the relationship, you’ll never have a chance to hit pause and decide if you’re doing what you want to do, or what he wants you to do.

Ana emails him back and mentions the conference. She doesn’t ask if she can go, she says:

I’ve been asked to go to a conference in New York on Thursday.

It means an overnight stay on Wednesday.

Just thought you should know.

She also mentions that she wants to talk about this whole moving in thing. But right now, there are more important things, like the fact that Ana wants to go three steps away from Christian’s side and he’s just not having it. In an email with the subject line “WHAT?” he says:

Yes. Let’s talk this evening.

Are you going on your own?

Ana writes an email with the subject line “No Bold Shouty Capitals on a Monday Morning!” which is the title of a musical I am writing and now I have no idea what to call it. She asks if they can talk about it later, and he replies, in an email with the subject, “You Haven’t Seen Shouty Yet.” which is the title of this other musical I am writing and boy, am I ever in a real pickle now:

Tell me.

If it’s with the sleazeball you work with, then the answer is no, over my dead body.

Keeping in mind, she never asked for permission. He’s telling her no, in answer to a question he’s just presuming that she asked. Ana emails him back that yes, she’s going with Jack, it’s a good career opportunity, and Christian sends another email stating that his answer is an emphatic “NO.” So, Ana sends him the following:

You need to get a grip.

I am NOT going to sleep with Jack – not for all the tea in China.

I LOVE you. That’s what happens when people love each other.

That’s kind of weird phrasing, isn’t it? When people love each other, they don’t sleep with Jack? That’s a pretty fucking specific definition of love.

They TRUST each other.

Ohhh, I see. You flipped the cause and the effect around. Continue.

I don’t think you are going to SLEEP WITH, SPANK, FUCK, or WHIP anyone else. I have FAITH and TRUST in you.

Please extend the same COURTESY to me.

Because Ana had a spine on rental for a few hours, she sends her email and immediately books her flight to New York. Then she gets another email. This time, it’s from Mrs. Robinson, saying that she thinks they “got off on the wrong foot” and would like to try again. Unless she has a time machine and can go back and not molest Christian, I think she is severely over-estimating the power of her other foot.

Holy crap – not Mrs. Robinson! How the hell did she find out my e-mail address?

Yeah, it’s not like you guys have anyone in common. Like, anyone who would have done something like share your emails with her while discussing you.

Then the phone rings, and it’s Christian:

An achingly familiar voice snarls at me, “Will you please delete the last email you sent me and try to be a little more circumspect in the language you use in your work e-mail? I told you, the system is monitored. I will endeavor to do some damage limitation from here.” He hangs up.

Isn’t the system monitored on his end, though? Like, isn’t it his company monitoring the emails? Not that it matters. Just deleting an item from your inbox isn’t going to make it vanish into some netherworld where it can never be retrieved. If the email accounts are being monitored, they’re probably already going to have a copy of the email. And by the by, if he’s so paranoid about the emails being monitored, why did he call Ana’s boss a sleazebag? Isn’t that the sort of thing that might, you know, fuck up her job a little? OH SNAP. Could it be that Christian doesn’t want Ana to work so that she will be dependent upon him and his wealth?

I open my emails and delete the one I sent him. It’s not that bad. I just mention spanking and well, whipping. If he’s so ashamed of it, he damn well shouldn’t do it.

Bingo. And it’s not like he’s the only CEO in the history of American finance to use his money on some really weird sexual shit, right? I mean, if tomorrow the New York Times revealed that Bill Gates liked to be rectally stimulated with a cattle prod, it wouldn’t be on the front page. No one would think, “Gosh, that’s news, that rich people get up to some strange sexual stuff.” Christian’s fetish is actually quite tame. I recently watched a documentary where a rich businessman liked having cigarettes stubbed out on his tongue by a dominatrix. Whips and chains are just scratching the surface of sexual depravity in our deranged 1%. God love ’em.

Jack comes out of his office and tells Ana not to book her flight. Turns out, some strange and mystifying order from “the top” has just been issued putting a lock down on SIP’s coffers, and all expenses must be pre-approved. He’s going to check with “old Roach,” which briefly makes me imagine all the characters in this book as Mrs. Brisby-type animal characters. Jack is a weasel, in my version.

Ana immediately knows what’s up. She writes an email to Christian asking him not to interfere in her work. He responds:

I am just protecting what is mine. 

He tells her that all their emails have been wiped from the servers.

How does he do this? Who does he know that can stealthily delve into the depths of SIP’s servers and remove emails?

And why was it a big deal, if he could do that, anyway? This guy is so fucking bad at business. “I own this company, but that knowledge is embargoed. I better email back and forth with my girlfriend on a monitored system and talk about the embargo. Oh my god, what have I done?”

Ana replies that she doesn’t need protecting, and she can reject Jack all by herself when she’s damned good and ready. But that’s not good enough for Christian, not when he can use RAPE BLAME ™, the patented victim shaming technique that holds women accountable for the actions of men! BEHOLD:

I have seen how “effective” you are at fighting off unwanted attention. I remember that’s how I had the pleasure of spending my first night with you. At least the photographer has feelings for you. The sleazeball, on the other hand, does not. He is a serial philanderer, and he will try to seduce you. Ask him what happened to his previous PA and the one before that.

I hate to have to resort to the list format again, but really, it’s so much easier when there is this much bullshit to keep track of:

1. Ana is somehow responsible for the fact that a man physically overpowered her.
2. Christian is somehow not responsible for the fact that he removed an unconscious woman from a bar and took her back to his hotel room.
3. It would have been okay for Ana to get raped by Jose, because Jose has a crush on her.
4. Ana is too stupid and too gosh darn rapeable to fight off her boss.
5. Because his last two assistants slept with him, she will, too.

#5 really bugs me, because I once worked for a guy who really did sleep with all his secretaries. So much so that his old secretaries would call me while I was working and tell me how he was going to lie to me, how I was going to be helpless to resist, how I should guard my heart because he was going to use it up and throw it away. And no matter how many times I would say, “Um, this guy looks Eugene Levy and The Penguin from Batman Returns had a baby, you really don’t need to worry about me,” they would still insist that I was going to sleep with him. And guess what? Worked there for a while, never slept with him. Never even remotely tempted. The way Ana feels about her boss is pretty clear, and the idea that women are going to just helplessly sleep with their bosses is pretty fucking insulting.

Christian also tells Ana:

If you want to go to New York, I’ll take you. We can go this weekend. I have an apartment there.

Oh, of course he does. But that’s not really the point, is it, Ana?

Oh, Christian! That’s not the point.

No, it’s not. The point is, Ana was asked to fly to New York for her job, which she takes seriously. Christian should be proud to be dating someone who commits to her work and isn’t just some vapid gold digger. I mean, she’s plenty vapid, but she’s not a gold digger.

Trust him to bring up Jose. Will I ever live that down? I was drunk, for heaven’s sake.

Yeah, since when is it the victim’s job to “live down” the assault? Why does Ana have something to be ashamed of?

Ana writes another email to Christian:

While you have been busy interfering in my career and saving your ass from my careless missives, I received the following email from Mrs. Lincoln. I really don’t want to meet with her – even if I did, I’m not allowed to leave this building. How she got ahold of my e-mail address, I don’t know.

Yes, you do. It’s not really that big a leap. Christian says he’ll deal with it, and Ana tells him to stop emailing her because she’s trying to do her job. Jack comes back from visiting The Old Roach under the Hollow Tree and says that upper management won’t approve her going to New York. Que sopresa. Then, Jack asks Ana to go out and get him lunch. Which, you know, she can’t do, because she promised Christian she wouldn’t leave the building, because she doesn’t have the gift of foresight. She goes anyway, figuring he’s not going to find out, because she hasn’t read any other page in this book.

Claire from reception offers me her umbrella since it is still pouring with rain.

What a weird way of phrasing that.

Ana immediately gets freaky, I-am-being-watched feelings on her way to the deli, but chalks it up to garden variety paranoia:

It’s just your imagination, my subconscious snaps. Who the hell would want to shoot you?

Of course, if I moved in with Christian, she would make lunch for me every weekday. The idea is unsettling. I have never had dreams of obscene wealth and all the trappings – only love. To find someone who loves me and doesn’t try to control my every move.

False. You wanted a literary hero. Not a lot of heroes from classic literature just loved their heroines without trying to control them. Aren’t you an English major?

The phone rings, and when Ana answers it, she gets this:

“You assured me you wouldn’t go out,” Christian interrupts me, his voice cold.

My heart sinks for the millionth time this day. Shit. How the hell does he know?

“Jack sent me out for some lunch. I couldn’t say no. Are you having me watched?” My scalp prickles at the notion. No wonder I felt so paranoid – someone was watching me.

Christian doesn’t admit that he had someone follow her, and he is somewhat chastened when she tells him to stop suffocating her.

After our wonderful weekend, the reality is hitting home. I have never felt more like running. Running to some quiet retreat so I can think about this man, about how he is, and about how to deal with him. On one level, I know he’s broken – I can see that clearly now – and it’s both heartbreaking and exhausting.

Well, you better move in with him, Ana, because I’m certain it will only get better if you do that.

With a heavy heart, I drag one of the manuscripts Jack wants me to summarize into my lap and continue to read. I can think of no easy solution to Christian’s fucked-up control issues.

Aspiring authors, beware. Your manuscript could end up in the hands of Ana, and she’s not going to be reading it so much as thinking about her boyfriend while staring at your words. But really, that first sentence makes me imagine the poor assistant or copy editor who had to slog through these 50 Shades books.

Ana stays late, but figures she’ll be out around seven-thirty. The office is all deserted except for her and Jack, who immediately turns on the slime:

He leans over me while I retrieve the document, rather close – uncomfortably close. His arm brushes mine. Accidentally? I flinch, but he pretends not to notice. His other arm rests on the back of my chair, touching my back. I sit up so I’m not leaning against the backrest.

“Pages sixteen and twenty-three, and that should be it,” he murmurs, his mouth inches from my ear.

My skin crawls at his proximity, but I choose to ignore it. Opening the document, I shakily start on the changes. he’s still leaning over me, and all my sense are hyperaware. It’s distracting and awkward, and inside I am screaming, Back off!

At this point, I’m wondering if she’s hyperaware because Christian has planted the seed of the idea in her head, or if he’s really trying to get into Ana’s pants. But then this happens:

“I think the least I could do is reward you with a quick drink. You deserve one.” He tucks a strand of my hair that’s come loose from my hair tie behind my ear and gently caresses the lobe.

EW! When you put it like that, like, “gently caresses the lobe,” yeah, he sounds like an oily pervert. Ana begins to think she might be in a bad situation:

Alarm bells sound loudly in my head. I am on my own in the office. I cannot leave. I glance nervously at the clock. Another five minutes before Christian is due.

You know that I absolutely hate to say anything good about this book, but that excerpt there? That is what I’m going to show to my husband to try and explain male privilege. Because he’s actually quite astounded when I bring up things like, “The reason I walk on the outside of the sidewalk is because someone can grab you and pull you into an alley or a doorway.” Because that stuff doesn’t enter into a man’s mind, and it’s not their fault, because for them, the world really is a safe place. A man would probably not feel unsafe being in an office with their male boss after the building is closed.

Jack tries to get Ana to go out for a drink, and she turns him down. Then he asks her if she had a good weekend, and questions her about her boyfriend:

“What does he do?”

Owns your ass… “He’s in business.”

“That’s interesting. What kind of business?”

Okay, hold up. I thought Christian Grey was super well-known. In the third book (spoiler) he’s worried about the paparazzi dogging him and Ana on their honeymoon. So, if he’s famous enough to be followed around the world by paparazzi, why didn’t Jack recognize him when he met him at the bar? In the city that Christian practically owns? You would think that working in Seattle, Jack would have at least seen him in the newspaper or something. Yet when Ana tells him Christian’s name:

Jack’s mouth drops open. “Seattles richest bachelor? That Christian Grey?”

“Yes. The same.” Yes, that Christian Grey, your future boss who will have you for breakfast if you invade my personal space again.

“I thought he looked familiar,” Jack says darkly, and his brow creases again. “Well, he’s a lucky man.”

I’m confused as to how Jack didn’t put the pieces together when Ana introduced him to Christian. I guess there’s a reason Jack is an editor and not a detective.

Jack backs off immediately when he finds out Ana is boning the richest man in the universe.

Well, that problem might be solved. Fifty works his magic again. Just his name is my talisman, and it has this man retreating with his tail between his legs. I allow myself a small victorious smile. You see, Christian? Even your name protects me – you didn’t have to go to all that trouble of clamping down on expenses.

Why are you victorious, Ana? Because you’ve managed the impossible feat of having a man to hide behind? Good for you. And I mean that as sarcastically as possible.

Christian comes to pick her up from work, and when she gets into the car, he tries to get pinkeye:

He raises my hand and lightly grazes my knuckles with soft butterfly kisses.

For those not “in the know,” what he’s doing is putting her hand by his eye and fluttering his eyelashes. That’s what a butterfly kiss is. Not only is it ridiculous, it seems like it would be about 100% more germy than a regular hand kiss, on the kisser’s end.

They don’t really talk in the car, which is a shame, because they usually almost end their relationship every fucking time they’re in the car together, and one of these days it’s going to stick, damnit. When they get to the building, Ana asks if Christian has found Leila yet, and I really wish he would just be like, “Leila who? Oh shit, was I supposed to be looking for someone?” because he’s clearly not doing a damn thing to find her. He says someone named “Welch” is looking for Leila. One guy, out of his entire staff, is looking for this girl. Yeah, you’re really trying hard, Christian.

Now, keeping in mind that Christian has exerted stupid levels of control over Ana today, fucked with her job, had her followed, etc., you’d think she’d be pretty pissed off at him, right? No, of course not! She’s overcome with her lust for him when they get into the elevator:

Oh my – the longing, the lust, the electricity. If it were visible, it would be an intense blue aura around and between us; it’s so strong.

Christian hits the emergency stop, because he’s apparently the only important person in the building. During this entire “Love in an Elevator” sequence, I like to imagine there are two paramedics waiting in an upstairs hallway, trying desperately to keep a heart attack victim alive to get him or her to the hospital, but because Christian has stopped the elevator to fuck his girlfriend, the patient dies.

Just like every other time they have sex, Christian gives Ana instructions as to how she should undress. This time, he tells her to take down her hair and unbutton the top buttons of her blouse. Then he says:

“Do you have any idea how alluring you look right now?”

And I finally get the “Do you have any idea” thing. He’s asking, because he wants her to appreciate how sexy he has made her look. Think about it. Every time they have sex, he tells her to undress in a certain way, to pose in a certain way, and then he says, “Do you have any idea,” about the situation. When he says this, he is congratulating himself for making her look the most attractive to him that she can possibly be.

Oh no, that’s not creepy at all.

We get all the usual trappings of a Chedward/Anabella sex scene, including the “foil packet” and he “starts to move, really move,” and of course, simultaneous elevator orgasm. Then they go eat coq au vin (because even their food needs to drink heavily) and Christian tells Ana about his day:

Christian fetches a bottle of white wine from the fridge, and as we sit and eat, he tells me about how much nearer he’s getting to perfecting a solar-powered mobile phone. He’s animated and excited about the whole project, and I know then that he hasn’t had an entirely shitty day.

Well, thank God for that. Because it would really suck if his day was unpleasant, after he spent so much time making yours unpleasant.

Ana tells Christian that he was right about Jack being a sleazeball, and Christian offers once again to have him fired. So Ana tells him:

“You really have to let me fight my own battles. You can’t constantly second-guess me and try to protect me. It’s stifling, Christian. I’ll never flourish with your incessant interference. I need some freedom. I wouldn’t dream of meddling in your affairs.”

Except for when she, you know, asks your therapist to break patient confidentiality and tell her all about your problems. She’ll totally meddle in your affairs then.

Christian reasserts that he’s just protecting her, but Ana sticks to her guns:

“You can’t interfere in my job. It’s wrong. I don’t need you charging in like a white knight to save the day. I know you want to control everything, and I understand why, but you can’t. It’s an impossible goal… you have to learn to let go.” I reach up and stroke his face as he gazes at me, his eyes wide. “And if you can do that – give me that – I’ll move in with you,” I add softly.

Okay, she sticks to her guns for like a millisecond. And then she’s all, “I’ll move in with you,” because as I pointed out before, that’s not going to exacerbate his control freak problems or anything. Ana tells Christian that there’s nothing he can tell her about himself that would make her run away, and I totally believe that. She can rationalize his behavior into anything she wants, and continues to, because as you can see in this next excerpt, he still really does not fucking get it:

“I’m trying, Anastasia. I couldn’t just stand by and let you go to New York with that… sleazeball. He has an alarming reputation. None of his assistants have lasted more than three months, and they’re never retained by the company. I don’t want that for you, baby.” He sighs. “I don’t want anything to happen to you. You being hurt… the thought fills me with dread. I can’t promise not to interfere, not if I think you’ll come to harm.” He pauses and takes a deep breath. “I love you, Anastasia. I will do everything in my power to protect you. I cannot imagine my life without you.”

Now, notice that he doesn’t say, “You’re right, I’ll respect your boundaries and not fuck with your work.” On the contrary, he says pretty explicitly that he’s going to keep interfering if he thinks it’s in her best interest, and she doesn’t get to decide what her best interests are. But Ana doesn’t hear a damned word of this. What does she hear?

Three little words. My world stands still, tilts, then spins on a new axis; and I savor the moment, gazing into his sincere, beautiful gray eyes.

And then Taylor comes in and says that Mrs. Robinson is on her way up. CLIFFHANGA!

See that sexy thumbnail? It really only gets worse.

Here’s the jist, if you stubbornly refuse to listen to me whine about being sick for four minutes: I’m sick, the recap is delayed until tomorrow, possibly Wednesday, just hang in there because I might have Ebola.

Here’s my crazy Doctor Who fan theory: Oswin is actually Amy. Here’s why:

• At the beginning of “Asylum of The Daleks” he tells Amy “Make them remember you.”
• At the end of “Asylum of The Daleks” Oswin says “Remember me.”
• Amy had a Time Lady baby, River Song.
• How did that happen if she wasn’t a Time Lady?
• In “Dinosaurs on A Spaceship” Amy is really, really good with technology.
• Remember who else was really good with technology?
• That’s right, Donna Fucking Noble after the metacrisis.
• Oh, yeah, and Oswin.