Author: JennyTrout

I really hate to keep bringing up the GoodReads controversy, but I find that in some ways, coincidences spur you on to greater things. Like, this one time when I really wanted to go to a gay bar, but also I wanted to go to a strip club, and I ended up going to a gay bar that was also a strip club. Or, when something awesome happens to prove my point about something really important.

During this whole GoodReads thing, several people pointed out (and thank you for doing so) that it seems like only female authors are expected to be nice to each other. Male authors can say whatever they want about their fellow writers, they can write satire, they can express their opinions, and it’s all fine. There are some spectacularly douchey male authors out there (not the one I mention later in this post, he’s totally cool and non-douchey, from what I understand), but it’s okay, because they have penises, and that makes their opinions important. If a female writer passes judgement on a fellow writer, it’s due to jealousy, a desire to self-promote on the back of another author’s success, and shallow, catty envy.

Now, check out this link: “A satirist goes for non-too-subtle shading” It’s a story from the New York Times about Andrew Shaffer, a reviewer for Romantic Times and an author in his own right, who wrote a soon-to-be-released parody of 50 Shades of Grey. Okay, I think this guy is awesome. So, when I point out a few things, it’s going to seem kind of harsh, or like I’m saying I don’t agree with his right to do this. That is not the case, he has just as much right to poke fun at a cultural phenomenon as anyone does. I don’t begrudge him the fact that he’s making money off it. After all, didn’t E.L. James also make money off someone else’s book? So, for the record, I am a big fan of Andrew, aka Evil Wylie, and I think this book is going to be great. Still, let’s break this down: I was accused of jealously trying to hook my money-gobbling wagon to E.L. James’s star, because I’m blogging here about 50 Shades of Grey. Andrew Shaffer, who I will presume identifies as a man based on name and dress, writes a book lampooning 50 Shades and is paid actual money to do so and yet I see only one instance on the book’s GoodReads page where he’s being accused of mean-spirited envy. Not, you know, two hundred-ish comments where he’s lambasted and assigned shady motivations. And I’m pretty sure no one is down voting Peter Shaffer’s plays in retaliation.

Again, I’m super psyched for Andrew Shaffer, I think it’s going to be a hilarious book, and I highly encourage everyone to make fun of 50 Shades of Grey because it is re-damn-diculous. And thank you, universe. Thank you for the beautiful gift of throwing the double standards in male and female author behavior into razor sharp relief.

Previously, on 50 Shades:

• From here on out, these are probably all going to be even more NSFW.
• If you’re reading via GoodReads.com, you’re probably reading some messed up formatting. Come join the properly formatted post at my blog.
• Abed is Batman now.

It’s a beautiful May morning. Seattle at my feet. Wow, what a view. Beside me, Christian Grey is fast asleep. Wow, what a view.

Please click here.

Christian is gorgeous, even asleep. Ana thinks he looks younger. I think, “Younger than twenty-seven?” I remember when I thought twenty-seven was ancient, too, Ana. And then she thinks he looks like a small child, so, you know. Let’s continue with that theme I was enjoying so much. Ana really enjoys Christian being asleep, because, “I don’t have to worry about what I’m saying, what he’s saying, what plans he has, especially his plans for me.” You know, I get her comparison to small children now, because I feel the same way about my kids when they’re asleep. Only, I’m less verbose about it. Silent, actually, because it’s hard to talk when you’re chugging back a bottle of White Zin.

I could gaze at him all day, but I have needs – bathroom needs. Slipping out of bed, I find his white shirt on the floor and shrug it on. I walk through a door thinking that it might be the bathroom, but I’m in a vast walk-in closet as big as my bedroom. Lines and lines of expensive suits, shirts, shoes, and ties. How can anyone need this many clothes? I tut with disapproval. Actually, Kate’s wardrobe probably rivals this. Kate! Oh no. I didn’t think about her all evening. I was supposed to text her. Crap. I’m going to be in trouble.

She’s staring at me with pursed lips, tapping her foot. So you’ve just slept with him, given him your virginity, a man who doesn’t love you. In fact, he has very odd ideas about you, wants to make you some sort of kinky sex slave.

 ARE YOU CRAZY? She’s shouting at me.

Okay, this right here, this is not going to be a criticism of the book. This is just a general question, and if anyone wants to weigh in on it, feel free to jump at it in the comments. Why do we talk about the “giving” and “taking” of virginity? Like it’s a tangible object than passes from hand to hand? I don’t understand it, but it’s definitely in the parlance of our society. The woman “gives” and the man “takes”. I’ve always hated that. I don’t feel like I gave anything away when I lost my virginity. I feel like I shared an experience. But then again, the kid who punched my v-card was also a virgin, so maybe in that case we just swapped virginities. I don’t know. But I really hate the give/take terminology.

Meanwhile, back on the ranch, Ana starts to consider everything that’s happened in the past twenty-four hours, but then she just gives up and starts complaining about her hair. She goes to get some hair ties and finds three texts from Kate, all wondering where she is. I’m wondering how Kate doesn’t understand the concept of sleeping over a man’s house. They’re what, twenty-one, twenty-two?

Remember the complaints I’ve had all along about Ana thinking of sexuality in some way, then immediately thinking of being childlike? Ana laments the fact that “just fucked” hair doesn’t look good on her, so she puts her hair up in… wait for it… pig tails. Her thinking? “Yes! The more girly I look, perhaps the safer I’ll be from Bluebeard.” I would say that this line, and the character’s actions, affirm my suspicion that Ana is sexually immature and unable to confront her own desires in a way that would allow her to consent to Christian’s arrangement. She sees herself as a victim of Christian’s sexuality, casting him as Bluebeard now, because we’ve apparently abandoned Tess of The D’Urbervilles as a literary theme. As Bluebeard’s thematically innocent young wife, she has no recourse to refuse him.

You know what movie uses Bluebeard as a really effective metaphor? The Piano. If you’ve never seen it, stop reading this recap and go watch it.

So, hair in pigtails, wearing Christian’s shirt, listening to her iPod turned up impossibly high, Ana dances her way around his kitchen and just makes herself at home, setting out to make pancakes and bacon. She applauds herself for managing to sleep in Christian’s bed, “even though he doesn’t let anyone in his bed. I smile, mission accomplished. Big time.” So, even though he’s made it clear that he’s not looking for a traditional relationship, this right here tells me that she thinks she’s going to be the woman to change him. She even goes so far as to remind herself that it wasn’t “making love,” but “fucking” (hard) that happened the night before, but then decides to ignore that. This is all following a really healthy path of open communication, right? Christian is sleeping away in the other room, secure in the fact that he’s made the nature of their relationship clear to her, and she’s wearing his clothes and playing house. By the way, this is a scene that is playing out every Saturday morning on every college campus ever. Except Christian is a married English prof and he doesn’t have a sex dungeon so much as a one-bedroom apartment he’s staying in while he “figures things out” and “works on his novel”.

Ana thinks about how she’s a misfit and Christian is also a misfit, and I think, “the word you’re looking for is misanthrope, not misfit.” Then she turns around and quelle surprise! like we didn’t all see it coming, Christian Grey has been sitting there, watching her for some time. Probably thinking, “Okay… I need to get her out of here like, yesterday.”

Oh, and he looks gorgeous so Ana flushes. I thought by now that was probably a given, but I should mention it in case y’all have short term memory loss.

After some morning chatter, he pulls her pigtail and says, “They won’t protect you.”  Well, that’s not… threatening. Ana asks how he’d like his eggs, and he replies, “Thoroughly whisked and beaten,” because while some men get morning erections, Christian Grey wakes with a major hard-on for puns. There is a fair amount of back-and-forth flirting in this section, but honestly, it’s so impossibly tangled up with the most clinical and boring descriptions of cooking bacon and eggs than I just cannot bring myself to spork it.

“Just how sore are you?” he asks as he sits down. His gray eyes dark.
I flush. Why does he ask such personal questions?
“Well to be truthful, I have nothing to compare this to,” I snap at him. “Did you wish to offer your commiserations?” I ask too sweetly.

Ana responds to another person’s consideration with pissery, as is her wont. Seriously, Ana, do you want to be with a guy who isn’t going to ask you how you’re feeling? Especially when he wants to dominate you and involve pain-play at some point in the future? Or would you prefer an inconsiderate jerk who just doesn’t give a shit if you’re in agony? Christian is so considerate of her, he suggests she stay to continue her “training”, but nothing that’ll disrupt her saddle sore:

“Well, as you’re sore, I thought we could stick to oral skills.” I choke on my tea, and I stare at him, eyes wide and gaping. He pats me gently on the back and passes me some orange juice.

So, the first thing we’re going to work on is your gag reflex, then? Then, he asks if she wants to stay, and promises to get her home in time for work at nine the next day. When she says she needs to go home and get clean clothes, he tells her they can buy some, and when she says she’d really prefer to be home that evening, his mouth goes into a “hard line”. Control freak much? You brought her by helicopter, you told her she could leave at any time. Now she’s all, “I’d rather not spend the entire weekend with you after we just slept together the first time,” and you’re disappointed in her? Christian, Christian, Christian. If you could see her internal monologue, you’d see her leaving tonight as a good thing. It’s less time for her to monogram your towels against your will.

They argue about food again. Every single time there is food in a scene with them, he forces her to clean her plate. I assume this is foreshadowing. Either that, or he reminds me of when one of my friends is on a diet, and then all our other friends insist she just try a cookie. Kate calls while Christian is clearing up the dishes:

“Ana, why didn’t you text last night?” She’s angry.
“I’m sorry, I was overtaken by events.”
“You’re okay?”
“Yes, I’m fine.”
“Did you?” She’s fishing for information.

She’s not really fishing, so much as asking outright if you slept with him. But Ana can’t say a thing, because she signed a legal document saying she wouldn’t say a thing. Ana decides the best way to get around the non-disclosure is to ask if she’s allowed to talk to Kate, in a strictly sex-ed kind of way. Christian tells her that if she has sex questions, she can ask him, but Ana thinks, “I can’t ask you. I’ll get your biased, kinky-as-hell distorted world-view regarding sex.” So, again, clearly this is a person who can give fully informed consent.

They go to the bathroom to take a bath together, and Christian tells her for the second time this chapter to stop biting her lip. Let’s add that to the drinking game, shall we? Not every time she bites her lip, just every time he tells her to stop biting her lip, because it’s turning him on so damned much.  We also get another description of how desire feels “down there.” Then they get into the bath.

He stands back to gaze at me. I’m naked for heaven’s sake. I flush crimson and stare down at my hands, level with the base of my belly, and I desperately want to disappear into the hot water and foam.

Okay, last night you were all, “Fuck my mouth,” and today being naked in front of him is too much. She really fixates on their nakedness in this scene, like she can’t believe that they’re both naked, together. Even though they had sex twice the night before and she just served him bottomless breakfast. But it’s shocking that they’re naked in the bathtub? I wonder what kind of baths Ana usually takes. Full wet suit? Christian masturbates Ana with a washcloth, but leaves her hanging at the crucial moment to direct attention to his penis. Ain’t that just like a man?

“I want you to become well acquainted, on first name terms if you will, with my favorite and most cherished part of my body. I’m very attached to this.” It’s so big and growing. His erection is above the water line, the water lapping at his hips. I glance up at him and come face to face with his wicked grin. He’s enjoying my astounded expression. I realized that I’m staring. I swallow. That was inside me! It doesn’t seem possible.

Hey. If she’s supposed to be on a first-name basis with your cock, you should probably tell her what you named it. It’s just manners.

I think I should run some kind of contest, some kind of “name Chedward’s penis” contest. I’ll have to think up what the prizes would be. Stay tuned, because that’s coming up, I promise.

Ana starts to give Christian a soapy handy-j, and then this happens:

Fuck my mouth… hmmm.  I remember him pushing his thumb in my mouth and asking me to suck, hard. His mouth drops open slightly as his breathing increases. I lean forward, while he has his eyes closed, and place my lips around him and tentatively suck, running my tongue over the tip.

“Whoa… Ana.” His eyes fly open, and I suck harder.

Hmm… he’s soft and hard at once, like steel encased in velvet, and surprisingly tasty – salty and smooth.

What about soapy, Ana? Because you didn’t wash the soap off. Look, I’m not trying to over share here, but can I just speak as the voice of experience and say that 1) I’ve heard a lot of guys say that the soapy handy-J seems like a great idea… until you get soap in your urethra, and 2) if you’re going to turn it around into a blowy, you want to be damn good and sure you got all the soap off. But this is a fantasy, as I have been reminded so often in the past few days, so I just have to let that slide. But please, we get that Ana is sheltered and innocent and all that, but are we really supposed to believe that she doesn’t know about oral sex and she’s come up with the idea for a bj all on her own just because he put a thumb in her mouth in the last sex scene. Like, if he hadn’t done that, she would have had no idea what to do with a cock at mouth level? I’m not buying it. Of course, she’s an expert right out of the gate:

Hmm… I pull him deeper into my mouth so I can feel him at the back of my throat and then to the front again. My tongue swirls around the end. He’s my very own Christian Grey flavor popsicle. I suck harder and harder, pushing him deeper and deeper, swirling my tongue round and round. Hmm… I had no idea giving pleasure could be such a turn-on, watching him writhe subtly with carnal longing. My inner goddess is doing the merengue with some salsa moves.

Based solely on the number of times Ana says “Hmm…” in this scene, I’m conjuring up a mental picture of her inner goddess, and I’d like to share it with you now:

I long to reach round and embrace him… touch him… but he has my arms trapped in the towel. I’m soon lost in his kiss. He cradles my head, his tongue exploring my mouth, and I get a sense he’s expressing his gratitude – maybe – for my first blowjob?

Maybe he just likes the taste of his own spunk, you ever think of that? I don’t remember seeing “no snowballing” on his list of “hard limits”. Then, after kissing her breathless, he begs her to accept his proposed agreement, and Ana thinks, “He really wants this.” Well, she did just give him the perfect blowy-j. I’m surprised he’s not rushing her via private jet to Vegas to marry her. Truly, he is a man like no other. And that’s not even sarcasm.

After asking Ana to trust him – and come on, she clearly does, she came to your inner sanctum after she saw what you bought at the hardware store – Christian goes and gets the tie from the cover of the book. He uses it to tie her hands together, and then:

He runs his fingers down my pigtails.
“You look so young with these,” he murmurs and moves forward.

I pull my tied hands over his neck and hold him the best I can. I know in that moment that I would do anything for this man. I am his.
The wonder that he’s introduced me to, it’s beyond anything I could have imagined. And he wants to take it further, so much further, to a place I can’t, in my innocence, even imagined. Oh… what to do?

“See how good we are together,” he murmurs. “If you give yourself to me, it will be so much better. Trust me, Anastasia, I can take you places you don’t even know exist.”

“But if he’s still in bed, then he must be ill. He’s never in bed at this time. Christian never sleeps in.”
“Mrs. Grey, please.”
“Taylor. You cannot keep me from my son.”
“Mrs. Grey, he’s not alone.”
“What do you mean he’s not alone?”
“He has someone with him.”
“Oh…” Even I hear the disbelief in her voice.Christian blinks rapidly, staring down at me, wide-eyed with humored horror.“Shit! It’s my mother.”

Thanks, Christian. We didn’t get that from the part where she was like, “You cannot keep me from my son.” Unless Christian is afraid Ana is going to think he’s married and he’s got a baby in a car seat in the closet, like in The Hangover.

Actually, that would be pretty funny. I wish the chapter would have ended that way.

So, I’ve spent the better part of the last two days in a constant state of combined anger, offense, and just general “oh my god, people are talking about me, and I don’t know how to handle it” stress. I want to make it clear that just someone saying, “shut up, I don’t like what you’re saying,” would never stop me from speaking my mind. That has never been the issue here. What was the issue was that another author was getting caught in the crossfire.

Last night, I had my most improbable and often recurring stress dream. It is also my least favorite, and it goes something like this: Unbeknownst to me, I have been secretly married to Gerard Butler for some time. Then he dies. I have to go to the funeral and bring home his ashes (much of this dream is modeled on P.S. I Love You, as you can plainly see). Because I have no memory off our marriage or the courtship that preceded it, I know nothing about dead Gerard Butler and I have to play it off to his grieving family and friends like I totally knew him, while my teeth fall out for no explained reason. Not just one or two teeth, either. More teeth than a healthy human mouth is expected to hold. When I get home, my real husband is furious with me. Not because I had a secret double life, but because it is clear to him that I did not love Gerard Butler enough.

I hesitate to post about the GoodReads furor a second time, but overnight my email inbox exploded and there are some things I felt I should address before further speculation drags them out into further absurdity, or I have more stress dreams (which inevitably become recurring Bill Murry sex dreams that put me off Ghostbusters for months).

1. I did not post reviews of 50 Shades to my GoodReads account. I posted a blog here, and it is somehow linked to my GoodReads author account. No one has attacked me for using GoodReads.com as a reviewing tool. If I could keep my blogs from posting there, I would, because GoodReads always fucks up Blogger’s formatting. But I don’t use GoodReads regularly enough to know how to work it. See also: my experience with Facebook.
2. I did not post recaps of 50 Shades out of professional jealousy or to “destroy” E.L. James. This was a theme in several of the emails and messages I’ve received, sometimes with the admonition to worry about my own writing and not the writing of others, and then maybe I would be just as successful. This allegation confuses me on two levels. The first being, how on earth someone would get the impression that I don’t know this business. My first book came out in 2006. I made my first sale in 2004. I started writing for publication almost ten years ago. I’ve worked (briefly) as an editor. I fancy myself somewhat knowledgeable about the writing “biz”, so I don’t understand how someone would get the impression that I’m dumb enough to think, “Muahahaha, I can reverse the popularity of a book millions of people are buying by bitching about it on my blog, which gets twenty hits on a good day! Muahahaha!” Think of all the really controversial blockbuster best sellers there have been this century so far. Millions of people bitched about James Frey, and he still sells like peanuts at an all-elephant pro-am soccer game. Millions of people have bitched about Twilight, but it’s not going anywhere. So, why would I think that I could sabotage E.L. James using the same tactic? Why would I want to sabotage another author in the first place? Making someone else fail wouldn’t make me succeed. I just find the book unintentionally hilarious and felt like that might connect with other people out there in Internetville. Clearly, I was right, or else we wouldn’t be having this conversation.
   The second part of this allegation that confuses me is the idea that I don’t need to be worrying about other people’s writing, just my own. What a shitty piece of writing advice that is. Writers who don’t read are bad writers, pure and simple. Not reading 50 Shades would have been professionally irresponsible of me. It’s a book in a genre I write for, and it’s garnered huge success and publicity. Why wouldn’t I read it? Granted, reviewing it publicly is another faintly-peanut scented soccer ball altogether, but I’ll cover that in the next point,
3. I do not cease to be a reader because I am a writer. I don’t really need to elaborate on this one, because the previous item just about covers it. History speaks for me, courtesy of GoodReads.com user Calisto: 50 best author vs. author put-downs of all time Please note that nothing I’ve said in any of my recaps comes close to expressing the desire to exhume the corpse of an author and abuse it. I have blogged about the similarities between Mark Twain and myself during a past “author feud” that was hardly a feud at all. If you care to read that post, it’s right here. But what I fail to address in that post is the fact that I’m a woman, and I’m being held to a much different standard than a male author would be. No one would ever tell a male writer that he wasn’t entitled to read and negatively review a book by a male counterpart, and yet here we are.
4. I am not a “nobody” or “wannabe” trying to make a name for myself. I hate, with the passion of an elephant who really hates soccer, blowing my own horn, so to speak. I rarely mention my own books on my twitter or even on this blog. When I put my covers in the sidebars there? I felt cheap for days. But right now, I’m going to blow my own horn, just a little. I’m not a “nobody”. I’ve been writing for years. I even made the USA Today Bestseller list once, which is going to look awesome in my obituary some day. I have readers that I love, because they all seem to be a little bit weird, like I am. I feel like I’ve made a name for myself, and even if that name is not on par with Nora Roberts or J.R. Ward, I feel like I’m entitled to say that I’m not a nobody. I’m just not a somebody.
5. I did not “copy” my name from Jennifer L. Armentrout in a bid to steal her readers or mess with her career. This one has come up not only last night, but quite often in the past year or so, and I’ve never addressed it. It just didn’t seem like it was worth my time, because both Jennifer L. Armentrout and myself knew the truth and that seemed like all that was important. But now I kind of have to address it, as it’s picking up speed and was a theme in seven hateful emails I received overnight. No, I did not “pick” nor “steal” my name as part of a calculated decision to sabotage Jennifer L. Armentrout. My mother picked my name for me when she filed my birth certificate in July of 1980. I sold my first book with this name, and it came out in 2006. I have been Jennifer Lynne Armintrout since the day I was born, and I’ll be Jennifer Lynne Armintrout until the day that I die, much to my husband’s old-timey dismay. I endured the “Arm & Hammer” jokes all through elementary school, the classic, “Did your dad get his ARM stuck in a TROUT?” taunt (which I’ve never really understood… isn’t it catfish that people catch that way?), and the well-meaning, but racially and culturally insensitive, “Is that a Native American name?” I’m sticking with it, but not out of spite or the desire to harm another writer. I don’t know if Jennifer L. Armentrout is receiving these kinds of accusations, as well, but they are super unfair. Having similar names does not mean that one of us is gunning for the other, and as I have established above, I’m doing pretty okay on my own. I don’t need to “steal” anyone’s success or readers. Plus, if I were going to do something like that, I would have gone with “Dora Roberts”*. Go big or go home, I always say.
6. I do not now, nor will I ever, delete comments in GoodReads.com discussions. I don’t want to censor anybody. I am not an Etsy forum admin, I’m not going to “wrap this up” because it’s not as nice as a vintage barn wood doorstop. If your comment disappeared, tell it to GoodReads.

Thanks to the miracle of GoodReads.com, I realize I have to clarify that I have read the entire book. My recaps give the impression that I started out reading the book with the intent to criticize it, a chapter at a time. That makes me seem like a bullheaded weirdo who sets out to dislike something. When I started the recaps, of course I knew I had read the whole thing and was presenting it as a read-a-long for comedic effect, but I failed to realize that you didn’t know that. So, yes, I have read the entire book. I found it a surprisingly fast and easy read, so it has that going for it.

You think I’m kidding, right? That’s sweet, that you think I have to make shit like that up. No, I’m not going to even save it for a slow reveal. In this chapter, Christian Grey fucks Ana so hard she turns into a pirate. Not even a digital age pirate. Like, a straight out of Treasure Island pirate. Look, I even gave a nod to classical literature! This blog is just steps away from becoming a finalist in GoodReads.com‘s reader’s choice awards romance category.*

In our last foray into Grey, Christian had just learned that Ana is a virgin, and he reacted with all the grace and sensitivity you would expect from a man who stalks women and forces them to sign legally binding contracts before having sex with him. That is to say, none at all. He’s actually angry that Ana didn’t tell him soon (because being a twenty-one year old virgin is something to brag about in this day and age, am I right?). Now, he’s pacing around his home office, running both hands through his hair, like he’s been playing the stock market in 1929 and just realized this is a bad move. He’s mad because she knows about his sex dungeon, and she didn’t tell him about her virginity, which appears to genuinely disgust him. Of course, he never filled out a non-disclosure agreement with Ana, so why should she have to share all her secrets? How is he mad that she knows something she’s legally bound to never tell to another soul, but she hasn’t bared herself to him in a similar manner without that legal protection? I bet when Christian was a kid, he said, “That’s not fair!” in a really whiny voice a lot.

“And a nice young man hasn’t swept you off your feet? I just don’t understand. You’re twenty-one, nearly twenty-two. You’re beautiful.” He runs his hand through his hair again. 
Beautiful. I flush with pleasure. Christian Grey thinks I’m beautiful. I knot my fingers together, staring at them hard, trying to conceal my goofy grin. Perhaps he’s near-sighted, my subconscious has reared her somnambulant head. Where was she when I needed her?

Listen, Ana, I’ve told you this several times. That’s not your subconscious. Your subconscious isn’t in charge of putting fully formed thoughts into your head in an easy to read format. Your subconscious is, however, probably the reason that you can’t say no to anyone, but you still think you’re operating under your own willpower. As for Christian Grey and his “nice young man” comment, I really think this whole thing would be more believable if he’d been written as a guy in his late fifties. I mean, come on, “nice young man?” And I’m not believing for an instant a twenty-seven year old bachelor millionaire who doesn’t have an Xbox. Never gonna happen.

Christian offers, very gallantly, to unburden her of her virginity.

“I thought you didn’t make love. I thought you fucked hard.” I swallow, my mouth suddenly dry.
He gives me a wicked grin, the effects of which travel all the way down there.
“I can make an exception, or maybe combine the two, we’ll see. I really want to make love to you. Please, come to bed with me. I want our arrangement to work, but you really need to have some idea what you’re getting yourself into. We can start your training tonight – with the basics. This doesn’t mean I’ve come over all hearts and flowers, it’s a means to an end, but one that I want, and hopefully you do, too.”

Oh, Christian, stop with your romantic talk, I’m falling in love with you already. There are so many times in this book that I’ve said, out loud, “Seriously?” This is one of those. A means to an end? How much paperwork is she going to have to fill out on this one? The romance in this scene is paralleled only by the unbridled eroticism, with Ana using such wicked terminology as “down there”. Someone quick, turn up the AC! Ana points out that she hasn’t said yes to any of the rules, and Christian decides he can make an exception to get some tail:

“Forget about the rules. Forget about all those details for tonight. I want you. I’ve wanted you since you fell into my office, and I know you want me. You wouldn’t be sitting here calmly discussing punishment and hard limits if you didn’t. Please, Ana, spend the night with me.”

Okay, if you want her so much that you can forget all the other stuff, then why is it an issue if she doesn’t want to play D/s with you? Since finding out about the sex dungeon, she’s thought of him as a freak and a monster, and she’s totally disappointed that he’s into this stuff. He’s even picked up on it. So, if you’re so into her, why can’t you enter into a relationship with her that doesn’t include those elements? Or at least, introduce those elements gradually, to see if she likes them? No? It has to be exactly the way you want it to be, all the time, because that’s your idea of what a “relationship” is? That’s healthy.

So, they’re going to have sex, just this one time, totally vanilla, to get rid of her pesky virginity. He says she’s “One brave young woman,” and that he’s in “awe” of her. Why is she brave? Because she’s having sex? Or because she’s going to be having that sex with you? Someone is awfully full of himself if he thinks that he’s so scary and intimidating.

Rather than have sex with her in the the room reserved specifically for that purpose, Chedward breaks his usual rigid self control and takes her to his bedroom.

The walls are white, and the furnishing are pale blue. The enormous bed is ultra modern, made of rough, grey wood, like driftwood, four posts, but no canopy. On the wall above it is a stunning portrait of the sea.

I don’t mean to pick nits (yes you do, Jen), but how is driftwood “ultra modern”?

I am quaking like a leaf. This is it. Finally, after all this time, I’m going to do it, with none other than Christian Grey.

FYI, if there are any typos or missing words in this post, it’s because I had to get an epic high on to get through this chapter. The moment I read “do it”, I was like, “Oh no,” and reached for the nearest available illegal substance. I am not kidding. I can’t get through a sex chapter sober if it’s going to be chock full of middle school euphemisms.

Of course, now I’m terrified that some angry 50 Shades fan is out there, scouring my books for middle school euphemisms, and wondering whether they’re going to find them. Damn this drug-induced paranoia!

Christian says that he wants to bite her lip again. If I had known how repetitive people biting or wanting to bite Ana’s lip was going to be, I would have added it to the drinking game. But I didn’t, and you’re still alive, so in a way, I saved your life. You’re welcome. Ana watches as Christian does the most anal retentive strip tease ever. He takes off his watch. He takes off his jacket. He takes off his shoes and socks, and apparently this methodical undressing is doing something to Ana, because she finds even his toes tantalizing (alliteration high five!).

They have the requisite conversation about birth control that’s factory stock in every romance, ever, these days. But props to my girl E.L., she switches it up quite a bit:

“I assume you’re not on the pill.”
What! Shit.
“I didn’t think so.” He opens the top drawer of the chest and removes a packet of condoms. 

If you’re a reader of contemporary romances, you’ll know how this scene usually goes. If the hero and heroine discuss birth control at all, they do so to show the reader why it’s okay for them to bareback it. The hero will suggest a condom, and the heroine will say, “It’s okay, I’m on the pill.” I always kind of think to myself, “Is it a pill that will prevent Chlamydia?”, but I can’t really talk, because I write a lot of unsafe sex. That’s because it’s fantasy and condoms suck in real life (I think we can all agree on that point) and also my characters boinking it raw are usually vampires or other magical creatures that can’t get STDs or worse, children. Here, E.L. James takes the common sense road by having her characters not argue their way into the Clap. Good job.

So, when Christian takes out the condoms, he says… hang on a second… I’m trying to get my serious face on, but it’s not working.  He says, “Be prepared.”

I can hardly contain the riotous feelings or is it hormones that rampage through my body.

What? What did any of that even just mean?

Seeing him on his knees in front of me, feeling his mouth on me, it’s so unexpected,, and hot. My hands stay in his hair, pulling gently as I try to quiet my too-loud breathing.

Here’s another place where the Random House version and the original version differ. They caught that once the sex starts, the punctuation falls a-fucking-part, and they fixed that. Also, it looks like we might have a problem here. She’s into seeing him on his knees… uh oh! Maybe they’re both Doms. Shit, that just would not work out, right?

He puts his nose in her vulva and tells her how good she smells, right before he takes off her shoes and her socks and then licks her foot and nibbles on it. I don’t care who you are, I don’t care if you are Angelina Jolie, when you take your foot out of sneakers and socks, they are moist with a build up of perspiration, they probably don’t smell fresh, and they are going to be absolutely covered in sock lint. I cannot get that image out of my mind, a pale, sweaty foot with indentations from the shoe and sock lint all over it, and Chedward sucking on it. Hork. Seriously, hork. Then we reach the moment in the book that made my literally rant out loud for an hour about negative attitudes toward female sexuality in Western culture:

“Show me how you pleasure yourself.”What? I frown.“Don’t be coy, Ana, show me,” he whispers.I shake my head.“I don’t know what you mean.” My voice is hoarse. I hardly recognize it, laced with desire.“How do you make yourself come? I want to see.”I shake my head.“I don’t,” I mumble. He raises his eyebrows, astonished for a moment, and his eyes darken, and he shakes his head in disbelief.

 Okay. I get it. Ana is innocent. So innocent that at age twenty-one, she has never masturbated (except for that part in the fucking shower just a few fucking chapters ago, when she was rubbing Christian’s body wash all up on her nooni). What is the appeal here? Why do romance readers like heroines who have never orgasmed? What is the draw, fantasy wise? I cannot fathom why is it is preferable for a romance heroine to be so totally ignorant about sex that she can’t even engage in a frank dialogue with the hero about what it takes to get her off. Is ignorance really a quality we should value in our young women, on any subject? If life imitates art, are we training women to subconsciously believe that their past sexual experience sullies them in some way? What the hell. What. The. Hell.

I have completely forgotten what I was originally doing here, actually. That’s how infuriating I find that trope.

Christian decides that he’s going to try to make Ana come from playing with her nipples. I’m thinking if she’s gone her entire adult life and her teenage years without having an orgasm, just turning a hairdryer on in the next room is going to make her come, but whatever, you’re the Chedward. Of course, it works, and really quickly, and suddenly Ana understands what’s so great about sex.

Then Chedward apparently puts a hole in her panties:

His hand moves down my waist, to my hips, and then cups me, intimately… Jeez. His finger slips through the fine lace and slowly circles around me – there.

Can you vague that up for me? There where? The lace? Did his finger rip through the panties? That’s what it sounds like. Oh well, he’s rich, he can buy more, right?  Finally, we get THE BIG REVEAL. And it really is big. So big that, like every romance heroine ever, Ana wonders how it will fit. And then. It happens.

“I’m going to fuck you now, Miss Steele,” he murmurs as he positions the head of his erection at the entrance of my sex. “Hard,” he whispers, and he slams into me.

“Argh!” I cry as I feel a weird pinching sensation deep inside me as he rips through my virginity.

There you have it. At age twenty-one and a lifetime of clumsiness, Ana is still, unbelievably, factory-sealed, and breaking the seal voids the warranty turns her into a pirate. Please note how the author keeps with romance novel tradition by having the hymen situated way up in there. That’s a proud and noble tradition, steeped in total refusal of how the female body works.

The rest of the sex is pretty standard. They finish, he asks if he hurt her, and this is how she describes sex in her inner monologue:

Two orgasms… coming apart at the seams, like the spin cycle on a washing machine, wow.

All over America, the frustrated housewives the Today Show claims are loving this book just nodded sagely and winked at their washing machines. Now that Ana has sailed the high seas of love, she’s ready to go a-pirating again. This time they’ll take off her bra and his shirt. Who fucks with their shirt on? That’s weird enough that it must be for a reason, because he doesn’t take it off. I’m betting the arm of his parasitic twin is under there. This time, he takes her from behind, and it’s still a pretty tame scene, again, but not without the requisite creepy stalker talk that Christian has honed to a needle-sharp point:

“I want you sore, baby,” he murmurs, and he continues his sweet, leisurely torment, backward, forward.“Every time you move tomorrow, I want you to be reminded that I’ve been here. Only me. You are mine.”

Even this isn’t that unusual for a romance novel. It’s usually the moment the Alpha hero becomes a creepy dickwad. Sometimes, authors make weird choices with their punctuation in sex scenes. I once read an erotica where the heroine… spoke… all… her… dialogue… with… ellipses… such… was… her… passion, and I thought she needed her inhaler. In this book, Christian has a habit of speaking with too many full stops, like a badly interpreted telegraph:

“You. Are. So. Sweet,” he murmurs between each thrust. “I. Want. You. So. Much.” I moan.
“You. Are. Mine. Come for me, baby,” he growls.

It’s like she’s trying to hit every single cliche in every sex scene ever, and cram them into one scene. And of course, all it takes is that magic, “come for me” to make her sproing like an over-wound watch. The pleasure is all too much, and she passes out the second he’s done. When she wakes up, it’s dark and Christian is gone. She hears piano… oh, come the fuck on. Really? Do we have to do the Edward/Bella piano playing scene?

Ugh. Fine.

She hears “The lilting notes of the piano, a sad, sweet lament. Bach, I think, but I’m not sure,” and goes to investigate.

Christian is at the piano, completely lost in the music he’s playing. His expression is sad and forlorn, like the music. His playing is stunning. Leaning against the wall at the entrance, I listen enraptured. He’s such an accomplished musician. He sits naked, his body bathed in the warm light cast by a solitary freestanding lamp beside the piano. With the rest of the large room in darkness, it’s like he’s in his own isolated little pool of light, untouchable… lonely, in a bubble.

 He’s actually not naked, he’s wearing PJ pants that hang from his hips IN THAT WAY, and he orders Ana to go back to bed, because she has a busy day of pirating in the morning. He’s shirtless, and when Ana tries to touch him, he backs away and goes to immediately put on a t-shirt, so yeah, he’s hiding a parasitic baby arm. At the close of the chapter, Ana realizes that Christian has a “sad side”, which, you know, doesn’t everybody?

I’m kind of disappointed. The sex was pretty standard. I’m hoping we get to the freaky stuff soon, because I don’t know how much more of this non-freaky stuff I can take.

That’s all from me for this week. See you back here on Monday, bright and early (and hopefully on time, not delayed by substance abuse or the fact that I dreamed I got up with the alarm clock but in reality only just turned the alarm off in my sleep). Oh, but one last thing. Remember that asterisk way up at the top? I wasn’t joking about this book being a finalist in the romance category for the Good Reads people’s choice award. It really, truly was. That happened.

Did anyone watch last week’s episode of Game of Thrones? Every time someone was ordering a whore to beat another whore to death, or forcing a live rat to burrow through a screaming man’s heart, I thought of Ana and her obsession with the Spanish Inquisition. Also, thanks, Game of Thrones. I just got my notoriously squeamish husband to watch you, and you utterly disturbed him. Now I’m going to have to watch it alone, just like American Horror Story, and I’ll have no one to talk to about it. Jeez!

The first thing I notice is the smell; leather, wood, polish with a faint citrus scent. It’s very pleasant, and the lighting is soft, subtle. In fact, I can’t see the source, but it’s around the cornice in the room, emitting an ambient glow. The walls and ceiling are a deep, dark burgundy, giving a womb-like effect to the spacious room, and the floor is old, old varnished wood. There is a large wooden cross like an X fastened to the wall facing the door. It’s made of high-polished mahogany, and there are restraining cuffs on each corner.

I’m no medieval historian or anything, but I’m pretty sure nothing about the Inquisition was faintly citrus scented. Ana has stumbled into the executive class Inquisition, is what I’m thinking. The description goes on, detailing an iron grid on the ceiling, various lengths of rope and chain, paddles, whips, you know. Exactly the type of stuff you’d expect from a sadistic billionaire. There’s also a red leather bed, made from the suits Eddie Murphy wore on tour in the 80’s. Okay, obviously that part isn’t in the book, but let me have this one. Ana feels the room is “romantic”, or at least Christian’s version of romantic, so she picks up a flogger and thinks a bit:

I think I’m in shock. My subconscious has been struck dumb or simply keeled over and expired. I am numb. I can observe and absorb but not articulate my feelings about all this, because I’m in shock. What is the appropriate response to finding out a potential lover is a complete freaky sadist or masochist? Fear… yes… that seems to be the over-riding feeling. I recognize it now. But weirdly not of him – I don’t think he’d hurt me, well, not without my consent.

How is this a surprise? He came to your work and bought rope and cable ties. He took weird pleasure in strapping you into your helicopter seat. It’s not like this guy hasn’t been sending you clues this whole time, probably on purpose to feel you out. He’s not subtle. Ana checks out the bed and admires the “craftsmanship”. Ana asks if he’s into being beaten or beating people himself:

“People?” He blinks a couple of times as he considers his answer. “I do this to women who want me to.”I don’t understand.“If you have willing volunteers, why am I here?”“Because I want to do this with you, very much.”“Oh,” I gasp. Why?

Is it that hard to figure out, Ana? I’ve been wanting to take a crack at you with any available implement since the middle of chapter one. Ana confuses dominance with sadism, but I really can’t blame her. There’s a little caning station set up, for heaven’s sake. Caning ain’t playing around. But Christian doesn’t get off on the pain aspect, just the submission.

Please him! He wants me to please him! I think my mouth drops open. Please Christian Grey. And I realize, in that moment, that yes, that’s exactly what I want to do. I want him to be damned delighted with me. It’s a revelation.

Let me just clarify, before I go any further with my thoughts here, that I have nothing against BDSM. I think that between two or more consenting adults who want to get off and have a good time, safely, BDSM isn’t any different than any other aspect of human sexuality. There’s nothing inherently dangerous about it, it doesn’t speak to some deep psychological wound in the people who get off on it, it’s just a thing that turns cranks for people. However, I do think there is a different level of “consent” to anything involving the physical aspects of BDSM, and I don’t think Ana can consent here. She’s a miserable person, desperate to please the romantic hero of her dreams, and she’s unable to say no to anyone. I think if Christian Grey asked her to rob a bank or kill a man just to watch him die, she would jump at the chance to please him. In fact, when Ana asks what she would get out of the arrangement, Christian’s answer is, “me”. I don’t feel that’s an entirely fair way for a dominant to answer that question.

Kate had said he was dangerous, she was so right. How did she know? He’s dangerous to my health, because I know I’m going to say yes. And part of me doesn’t want to.

See what I meant about consent?

Christian takes her to a different room, all in white (he has the same decorator as the Cullens do) and with an awesome view. This would be Ana’s room, and she’d stay in it from Friday evening through Sunday, if she agrees during negotiations. He won’t sleep with her, it’s just not something he does. They go back downstairs for dinner, and Christian tells Ana that now that she’s signed a non-disclosure, she can ask him anything. And thus follows the funniest typo ever:

“But we won’t have any sort of relationship?” I ask. “No.”“Why?”“This is the only sort of relationship I’m interesting in.”

I know it’s a typo. I know this, because this is the pre-Random House version of the book. I’ve noticed a few people saying that Random House didn’t edit the book upon acquisition, and just looking over both versions, it’s clear they did line edits on it. So let’s put that to rest, and discuss the fact that in the original version, the one that garnered world-wide success, Christian is only “interesting” in a BDSM relationship. I contend that no, he’s just plain not interesting. He offers Ana food, and when she politely refuses on the basis of not being hungry, he commands that she eat. You know, after the last chapter, where he told her she wouldn’t have to to do anything she didn’t want to do. Sure, he sounds like a safe, trustworthy dom. Ana points out that since she hasn’t signed anything, she doesn’t have to eat if she doesn’t want to, and at least he backs down. I would give her props for putting him in his place, but it’s obvious that this is going to be like, the very last time, because she’s going to sign his paperwork and let him do whatever he wants to her. I know this, because there are a lot more pages in this book.

Christian uses different variations of the word “punish” a lot. I think he’s related to Penny Pingleton’s mother.

Before Christian can warn Ana about the dangers of “race music” or threaten to make her wear a P on her sweater because she’s permanently punished, he figures he better show her the rules. Yes, all the rules are there, like we’re reading the sheet of paper with Ana. To sum them up, Ana has to obey Christian in all things, get plenty of sleep, good nutrition (no snacking between meals… I would be so out), wear certain clothes while in Christian’s presence, work out regularly with a personal trainer, get waxed and prettied up, not smoke, get drunk, or use drugs, have sex with anyone other than him, and generally not embarrass him, or she’s gonna get Punished. There’s a section on “hard limits”, meaning what freaky sex stuff she’s going to be down for. That’s a whole separate batch of paperwork that I’m really looking foward to slogging through, let me tell you. She feels weird about accepting money for clothes, thinking it will make her a “ho”. They argue and nitpick over pretty much everything on the list, then Christian introduces his “hard limits”. They include nothing where people are getting set on fire, pissed or shat upon, cut up, pierced, no medical fetish shit, pedophilia (I wonder if he knows how childlike Ana finds sexuality?) or bestiality, no choking or anything like that. When Christian asks Ana what her “hard limits” are, she admits that she doesn’t know… because she’s never had sex before.

“You’re a virgin?” he breathes. I nod, flushing again. He closes his eyes and looks to be counting to ten. When he opens them again, he’s angry, glaring at me.

“Why the fuck didn’t you tell me?” he growls.

Wow, the winner of Mr. Sensitive 2012 is…

This recap isn’t longer because it’s a short chapter, made shorter when you cut out the huge chunks of paperwork that I sure as hell was not retyping here. However, tomorrow… now brace yourself… I know you’ve been quivering in anticipation this whole time… tomorrow… Anastasia Rose Steele and Christian Grey are going… to do… IT.


I’ll get my rubber panties.

Remember yesterday, when I posted about the possibility of a 50 Shades of Grey movie? I’m not saying David Cronenberg has made it, but it does look like he’s made the poster for it:

Christian opens the passenger door to the black Audi SUV, and I clamber in. It’s a beast of a car.

First of all, Audi makes a few different SUV/crossover-type vehicles, so I’m going to assume that the “beast” Ana is referring to is the largest one Audi makes, the Q7:

That’s a 2008, but this is Audi, so they don’t change all that much year to year. Nothing about that vehicle screams “beast” to me. It’s a classic private school mom’s car. That’s my first beef. My second beef is, you can get this car new off the line for around 40k. Isn’t Christian Grey super rich? He has his own helicopter. So, why is he driving this and not some amazingly expensive sports car, or at the very least, a more expensive SUV (like the Porsche Cayenne Turbo, which can run in the neighborhood of 100k)? I see this all the time in romance novels, and I’m not sure what’s happening, but if your hero is an Italian tycoon, he’s not going to drive a BMW. If he’s a centuries old vampire with chests of gold doubloons just sitting around his house, he better not have just a Lincoln Navigator parked in the driveway. I guess you could make the argument that Christian Grey is frugal, but he just bought brand new shoes, jeans, and underthings for Ana to wear, rather than make her wait for hers to come out of the dryer, so I don’t know from frugal.

Ana is still reeling from the elevator kiss, but Christian isn’t mentioning it, so she figures she must have hallucinated it all. Because if Christian doesn’t confirm her thoughts, I guess that makes them invalid somehow. Christian has “The Flower Duet” from Lakme queued up on the MP3. Just for your reference, here is that song, in a mock-up Audi commercial, because sometimes the universe falls into place like pieces in a divine jigsaw puzzle:

[This video has since been removed by the user]

Ana thinks that this makes him seem “young, carefree, and heart-stoppingly beautiful”. Nothing says “young and carefree” like “I’m a big opera fan.” She questions him about his musical tastes, which run from “everything from Thomas Tallis to the Kings of Leon.” He puts on Kings of Leon, “Sex on Fire,” and Ana feels this is “appropriate”. Why is it appropriate? Did he give her herpes? Christian gets a lot of phone calls in the car, including one from his brother, Elliot, who asks if he got laid. What kind of a weirdo is Elliot, if he sees his brother wrestling an unconscious woman out of a bar and then asks if he got laid? “Hey, bro, you rape that girl last night? High five!” Ana suggests that Christian refer to her as Ana, instead of Anastasia, because she prefers it, but as we all know, nothing in this story is about what Ana prefers and it’s instead all about what Christian prefers for her, so he ignores her request and warns her that he won’t be kissing her again, not unless it’s “premeditated.” He has an easy way with the murder terminology, doesn’t he?

He pulls up outside my duplex. I belatedly realize he’s not asked me where I live – yet he knows. But then he sent the books, of course he knows where I live. What able, cell-phone-tracking, helicopter owning, stalker wouldn’t.

Why won’t he kiss me again? I pout at the the thought.

Ana, can you hear yourself when you think, or is it all just the whistle of a vacant, lonely desert wind in there? Christian opens Ana’s car door for her (prompting the writing of that HuffPo article I mentioned the other day… if you’d like to gag on your own vomit, here’s the link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jenny-isenman/i-cheated-on-my-husband-w_b_1433139.html) and she thinks about him kissing her and the fact that she really didn’t get a chance to touch him or anything. They go into the duplex, where Kate and Elliot are sitting at the table:

She has the most un-Kate ridiculous grin on her face, and she looks mussed up in a sexy kind of way. Christian follows me into the living area, and in spite of her I’ve-been-having-a-good-time-all-night grin, Kate eyes him suspiciously.
“Hi Ana.” She leaps up to hug me, then holds me at arm’s length so she can examine me. She frowns and turns to Christian.
“Good morning, Christian,” she says, and her tone is a little hostile.

I would be more concerned if she wasn’t slightly suspicious. When Ana went home with Christian, she was unconscious. They just graduated college, they know what happens when unconscious women are left alone with young men. Elliot kisses Kate goodbye, prompting Ana to think, “Jeez… get a room.” What kind of a room, Ana? Like, an elevator? A public place where anyone could walk right in? Hypocritical much?

Yes. Hypocritical very much:

Kate just melts. I’ve never seen her melt before – the words comely and compliant come to mind. Compliant Kate, boy, Elliot must be good.

Excuse me, ma’am, but your ass is showing. Didn’t you, just last chapter, finish all the food on your plate, even though you weren’t hungry, because Christian asked you to? Let’s not be pointing fingers vis-a-vis compliancy, okay? Christian and Elliot leave together, and Ana is jealous because Elliot blows Kate a kiss and Christian doesn’t blow her a kiss. Oh, and because Kate had sex:

“So, did you?” Kate asks as we watch them climb into the car and drive off, the burning curiosity evident in her voice.
“No,” I snap irritably, hoping that will halt the questions. We head back into the apartment. “You obviously did, though.” I can’t contain my envy. Kate always manages to ensnare men. She is irresistible, beautiful, sexy, funny, forward… all the things that I’m not. 

Way to slut-shame, Ana. It’s not like you weren’t just rubbing your no-no with Christian Grey’s body wash. Please note, that taking all the circumstances into account, Ana is envious that Kate had sex with Elliot and Christian didn’t rape her while she was unconscious.

“And I’m seeing him again this evening.” She claps her hands and jumps up and down like a small child. She cannot contain her excitement and happiness, and I can’t help but feel happy for her. A happy Kate… this is going to be interesting.

Not as interesting as a happy Ana would be, but I’m sure the existence of such a creature is a statistical improbability. And what is it with references to small children? Especially in the context it keeps getting used in, over and over? Is it intentional, to diminish the characters as women? They’re not having fully adult, grown woman feelings about sex, no, they’re always suddenly somehow childish. That’s really starting to get on my nerves, intentional or not.

Kate pretties Ana up (off screen, thank god, so we don’t have to hear about how horrible the ordeal was), and Ana goes to work at Clayton’s hardware. Where she thinks back on how Kate prettied her up and how horrible the ordeal was. Double crap. Ana is also not thrilled that she has to convince Kate that she wants to have sex with Christian Grey. Kate has got to be the most inconsistently written character ever committed in the written word. One minute, she’s all, “OMIGAWDDOHIM!”, then next she’s (entirely justifiably), “He’s a weirdo and I don’t trust him.” Ana’s would-be rapist, Jose, keeps calling her, leaving three messages and seven missed calls on the cell, and harassing Kate at home. Doesn’t he know that the most romantical of stalkers just trace cell phones? Jeez.

“Tonight is the night,” but Ana still has her doubts:

After all this time, am I ready for this? My inner goddess glares at me, tapping her small foot impatiently. She’s been ready for this for years, and she’s ready for anything with Christian Grey, but I still don’t understand what he sees in me… mousey Ana Steele – it makes no sense.

The pairing of ellipses and em-dash doesn’t make sense, either. Ana does not strike me as someone, inner goddess or no, who is ready for a sexual relationship with anyone. She’s entirely intimidated by Christian Grey and unable to say no to him. She has no self-esteem and what appears to be a very negative view of sex altogether, considering her scathing attitude toward Kate’s night with Elliot. She has all the maturity of a under-ripe banana. This is not a person who should be having sex at all, but she’s pretty much counting on it the day after her very first real kiss. The fact that she doesn’t find it weird that Christian has suggested paperwork will be involved in their sexual relationship is a big, red stop sign. But Christian is waiting for her- and opens her door- after her shift at the hardware store. They chitchat about their day, Ana’s voice “husky, too low, and full of need,” until they arrive at the heliport.

I wonder where the fabled helicopter might be. We’re in a built-up area of the city and even I know helicopters need space to take off and land.

That’s planes you’re thinking of, Ana. Helicopters are perfect for exactly the situation you’re describing, because they do not need a lot of space to take off and land. Come on, this is Helicopters 101 here. No. This is Helicopters 93: Intro To Helicopters. It’s the shit you’re supposed to know before you take Helicopters 101. They get into an elevator, and they share a little smile thinking about the fact that they made out in an elevator earlier that day. You crazy kids with your elevator BDSM. They’re taking the company helicopter, and the guy at the helipad informs them that the checks are already done, so Christian just hops right in. So, we know he’s a shitty pilot, then, because what kind of pilot doesn’t do his own checks? Especially a pilot who runs a powerful company with tons of money, and people might profit somehow off his death? Then again, I’m not going to complain about not having to sit with Ana’s internal monologue while Christian does twenty-minutes of flight safety stuff, because just getting her buckled into the seat is bad enough:

I sit down in my allotted seat, and he crouches beside me to strap me into the harness. It’s a four-point harness with all the straps connecting to one central buckle. He tightens both of the upper straps, so I can hardly move.
He’s so close and intent on what he’s doing. If I could only lean forward, my nose would be in his hair. He smells, clean, fresh, heavenly, but I’m fastened securely into my seat and effectively immobile. He glances up and smiles, like he’s enjoying his usual private joke, his gray eyes heated. He’s so tantalizingly close. I hold my breath as he pulls at one of the upper straps.
“You’re secure, no escaping,” he whispers, his eyes are scorching.

It actually keeps going from there, and there’s so much to enjoy. From Ana (who constantly refers to children or being childlike whenever the subject of sexuality comes up) being strapped into what is basically a giant car seat, to Christian not knowing what seat belts are actually for (pro tip: They’re to keep you from flying out of the vehicle in the event of a crash, not to keep you from escaping), it’s like a delicate ballet of unintentional metaphor making too fine a point and intentional metaphor falling as flat as a first time souffle. Lucky for us, the helicopter ride to Seattle takes an hour, so we have plenty of time for this type of thing:

His face is softly illuminated by the lights on the instrument panel. He’s concentrating hard, and he’s continually glancing at the various dials in front of him. I drink in his features from beneath my lashes. He has a beautiful profile. Straight nose, square jawed – I’d like to run my tongue along his jaw. He hasn’t shaved, and his stubble makes the prospect doubly tempting. Hmm… I’d like to feel how rough it is beneath my tongue, my fingers, against my face.

I just want to pause a moment here and say that while I am deeply troubled by most of the rest of this book, I’d like to offer E.L. James a hearty congratulations for articulating exactly what goes through my mind every time I watch James May driving on Top Gear. Good job, E.L.

There is a lot of chatter over the radio about airspace and clearances and such that we don’t necessarily need to read. Not because it’s not interesting, but because I’m almost 100% certain it’s entirely made up and serves no purpose other than to fill the pages and make the helicopter ride seem like it has been an hour long. Then, they’re flying into Seattle:

It looks otherworldly – unreal – and I feel like I’m on a giant film set, Jose’s favorite film maybe, ‘Bladerunner.‘ The memory of Jose’s attempted kiss haunts me. I’m beginning to feel a bit cruel not calling him back. He can wait until tomorrow… surely.

Or, you know, never. If some guy is acting all crazy, putting his hands on you when you’re clearly saying “no”, you don’t have any obligation to speak to him, ever again. Maybe that isn’t “polite” of me to say, but with a guy who won’t take “no” for an answer, polite is a one way ticket to Rapesville, population YOU. As they’re about to land, Ana feels faint, knowing that she’s going to let Christian down somehow.

He’ll find me lacking in some way. I wish I’d listened to Kate and borrowed one of her dresses, but I like my black jeans, and I’m wearing a soft mint green shirt and Kate’s black jacket. I look smart enough.

They still make black jeans? I mean, I was apparently off the mark in my assessment of whether or not people wear jeans with heels (although I stand by my conviction when I say that is totally gross), but seriously? I haven’t seen black jeans in a while. Okay, whatever floats your boat. You could have borrowed Kate’s dress, instead you’re dressed like Marie Osmond trying to sell her dolls on QVC. Go for it.

They land, and Ana is still super nervous. Her breathing is “erratic,” but at least she’s breathing this time, right?

His look is so intense, half in shadow and half in the bright white light from the landing lights. Dark knight and white knight, it’s a fitting metaphor for Christian.

I thought “Hillside Strangler” was a more fitting metaphor for Christian, but by all means, stick with Dark knight. Because every time I see it, I’m going to get to use this:

• Interview Christian Grey
• Call Christian Grey
• Talk about Christian Grey to her roommate
• Keep the books Christian Grey gave her
• Be rescued from a bar by Christian Grey
• Finish her breakfast
• Get prettied up for Christian Grey

I think we’re well past the point in our acquaintance with Ana where we can possibly believe her when she says, “I’d never do anything I didn’t want to do.” In fact, this entire story stems directly from an incident where she did something despite not wanting to do it.

“It’s a very big place you have here.”
“Big?”
“Big.”
“It’s big,” he agrees, and his eyes glow with amusement. I take another sip of wine.
“Do you play?” I point my chin at the piano.
“Yes.”
“Well?”
“Yes.”
“Of course you do. Is there anything you can’t do well?”

“Not stalk people.” That’s just, off the top of my head, that’s something Christian Grey can’t do well. They sit on the couch and Ana makes a reference to Tess of The D’Urbervilles, because if she made a reference to Wuthering Heights we’d have plagiarism on our hands. Ana asks him why he gave her those books, specifically, and then says she’d like him to completely debase her the way Alec does Tess. Christian argues that she couldn’t possibly know what she’s talking about, while simultaneously telling her that the way she bites her lip is distracting.

When he gets the jist, that Ana is down to get down, he runs and fetches a non-disclosure agreement for her to sign. She can’t tell anything about them, to anyone. The non-disclosure agreement seems to be a lot like the end-user license agreement when you buy a video game. See, Christian has this dark secret he thinks is going to scare Ana away. But before she knows what it is, she has to sign this paper. Just like, once you bought the game, you can’t return if it you open it, but you can’t read the user agreement unless you open the game, but you can’t use the game until you agree with the agreement. Oy. She doesn’t read it, even though Christian warns her to never sign anything she hasn’t read, but she argues with him and signs it anyway, then asks, “Does this mean you’re going to make love to me tonight, Christian?” His response:

“No, Anastasia, it doesn’t. Firstly, I don’t make love. I fuck… hard. Secondly, there’s a lot more paperwork to do, and thirdly, you don’t yet know what you’re in for. You could still run for the hills.[…]”

I’ve bought cars where I’ve filled out less paperwork than it takes to fuck Christian Grey. He offers to show Ana his playroom, and she interprets this as wanting to play Xbox. Before he opens the door to the “playroom”, he reminds her that they can leave at absolutely any time, he’s totally cool with it if she’s not down with what’s behind door #1. Ana insists he open the door.

And it feels like I’ve time-traveled back to the sixteenth century and the Spanish Inquisition.

Are you sure it’s the Spanish Inquisition? Not the Katherine Kavanagh Inquisition or the Christian Grey Inquisition? Ana sure thinks about the Inquisition a lot. I’m adding that to the drinking game.

That’s all for chapter six, I’m afraid. I very much appreciate the chatter this recap is drumming up. If you want to talk about 50 Shades or Twilight or helicopters or Top Gear or what I had for breakfast, hit me up on my twitter, @Jenny_Trout. I’m the friendliest misanthrope you’ll ever meet. Until tomorrow, good night and good luck.