Fifty Shades Darker Chapter 18 – Professional advice.

Previously: Ana got promoted to editor after a week on the job and EL James tried to make us believe it wasn’t because she’s screwing the boss. OKAY SURE.
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Lorraine: I feel that I have to start off this post by addressing a recent EL James related headline: ‘Fifty Shades’ author offers readers’ journal.

Basically, James is releasing a journal called, “Fifty Shades of Grey: Inner Goddess (A Journal).” I know you are thinking that this journal is probably for keeping track of all of the sports your inner goddess plays, BUT ALAS. IT IS A WRITING JOURNAL. Apparently, the pages will be peppered with excerpts from the series and “professional writing advice.”

EL JAMES WANTS TO GIVE PEOPLE WRITING ADVICE.

She’s either absolutely delusional, or the biggest troll to ever exist. She’s trolling humanity.

Sweeney: There are no words. We’ve long felt that she’s been trolling humanity and this just seems like the final proof, doesn’t it? The evidence is now conclusive.

Lor: The best and most entertaining part of it all was that we were sent this story about ten times through various social media. I laughed harder every time, because I love you guys and your outrage and that you think of us when you want to share a little HULKSMASH. Please never change.

Sweeney: Indeed. It’s fantastic. Also overwhelming. It felt like people alerting us to impending disaster that needs to be addressed. “FIX THIS. FIX THIS NOW.” But alas, you guys are the only ones who listen to us. This is just kind of proof of that too, huh?

Lor: The moral of the story is we don’t know how to fix it, but we can keep snarking it . On that note:

Christian is driving Ana to some sort of big surprise and as soon as she starts describing an affluent neighborhood, wholesome houses and kids playing in yards, I roll my eyes and see where this is going. Christian drives them up to a property with large metal gates, to which he has the punch code. He looks really nervous, probably because he proposed to his girlfriend of five weeks and she was all, “maybe?” so his next move is to be all, “HOW ABOUT I BUY US A HOUSE?”

In detail, we are described the tree lined lane that brings them up to the house. And this happens:

“Grasses and wildflowers have reclaimed it, creating a rural idyll- a meadow, where the late evening breeze softly ripples through the grass and the evening sun gilds the wildflowers. It’s lovely- utterly tranquil, and suddenly I imagine myself lying in the grass and gazing up at a clear blue summer sky. The thought is tantalizing yet makes me feel homesick for some strange reason. How odd.”

HMMM, why does Ana feel like she’s been here before, lying in a field of flowers?

Sweeney: You are my favorite person ever.

Lor: I’m blushing red, girl.

Grey parks and Ana’s still all, “Hmm… I wonder who lives here? Why are we visiting?” because she has the deduction skills of gnat.

A woman in a nice suit greats them and Ana immediately gets her low self-esteem on, and thinks about how happy she is that she isn’t wearing jeans! IMAGINE. She’d be wearing jeans while another woman was wearing a skirt and her whole fragile existence would come undone.

“She smiles at me and holds out her hand, which I shake. Her isn’t-he-dreamily-gorgeous-wish-he-was-mine flush doesn’t go unnoticed.”

You have NO IDEA why this lady flushed, Ana. Maybe it’s warm outside. Maybe your nasty ass hand is sweaty and gross, and she hates that she’s touching it. Maybe she’s embarrassed for you because you smell like body odor and week old semen. You just don’t know. So, either Ana is an idiot or James cheats at narration. Or both.

Sweeney: Both. Always both.

Lor: Ana is super shocked that the house is empty, because she still doesn’t understand what’s going on. The house is huge, of course, because Grey likes to overcompensate. “She will not marry me? BIGGEST HOUSE EVER.” He takes her out to see the view, which is amazing, “staggering even: twilight over the Sound.” SHE SAID TWILIGHT. IN HER FAN-FICTION TURNED BOOK, SHE WROTE THE WORD TWILIGHT. Everyone head to the liquor cabinet for a shot.

Even though random people in this story like to pass by and tell us how smart Ana is, we are reminded that these random people know nothing. Ana is all, “you brought me here to admire the view?” YES ANA. Absofuckinglutely. He brought you to this empty house with a realtor standing nearby to show you the view. So glad to see all that reading you do really helped your reasoning skills.

Sweeney: She’s not even a functional human being. Her obliviousness to everything ever just makes negative sense for a person of low to average intelligence, let alone the Mensa candidate we’re supposed to assume she is.

Lor: Finally, Grey tells her that he wants to buy the property, demolish it and build a new house for them. Ana’s super impressed because she thinks the house must be five or ten million dollars. Not a range, just five or ten million. I’m going to amend one of my earlier statements: Let’s all meet at the liquor cabinet for five or ten shots. Just, you choose.

Sweeney: I had an undergrad professor assign us a paper of “5-10 pages.” He was about a thousand years old and the sweetest man in the history of ever, so I’m pretty sure we all did him a favor when we made our papers four-pages-plus-a-sentence-or-two-to-drag-it-out-to-five. We were just being polite.

Here, though, I’ll aim high. TEN SHOTS. Ten shots. AND THEN SHE DIED. FUCK. WAIT.

Lor: Yeah, if we die, it really isn’t as fun of a game.

Ana asks why he wants to demolish the house and he replies because he wants to build a more sustainable one. It’s funny because he’s going to basically throw away a whole house and build a new one… to be more eco-friendly. OKAY, GREY.

Sweeney: Much like being constantly reminded of Ana’s intellect by random paper doll characters, we get a lot of senseless details like this, which are meant to convince us the Christian Grey is actually a good guy. “I know he’s a murderapist, but, like, he cares about the environment, so he’s totes dreamy.” Or something like that.

Lor: Ana asks the realtor to take them on a tour and she does and the whole house is great. Also, randomly, the realtor mentions having horses on their land and Ana says, “to me the meadow looks like somewhere to lie in the long grass and have picnics, not for some four-legged fiend of Satan to roam.“

For no reason whatsoever she just called a horse a fiend of Satan. WHAT IS THIS BOOK?

Sweeney: I’m dying right now. This is so random. She has “terrifying flashbacks of her riding lessons” which means that (1) Christian Grey is going to force her to go on a horse in the near future, because he forces her to do all the things she doesn’t want to do -and- (2) that Christian Grey is going to be her personal savior for forcing her to do this because that’s what happens all the times he forces her to do all the things she doesn’t want to do which is all the time always.

Lor: Let’s remember this because I can’t decide if it’d be more amusing if Ana got horse-therapy from Grey or if horses were never mentioned again. Both are fantastic options. You know, in that laugh bitterly until you cry way.

Anyways, Ana says of course she wants to live in Overcompensation Hall and Grey is happy and off they go. On their way back to Seattle, Ana asks if he’ll put Escala on the market and he’s all, “NOPE.” because he’s rich and doesn’t need to sell anything. Also, he’s a murderer and multiple properties help with body hiding. Grey is going to take her to celebrate now, and she asks if he means celebrating their new house. He has to remind her that they are celebrating the fact that she got a completely impossible promotion. “Unbelievably, I had forgotten.”

NO. NOT unbelievable because this sham of a job is only there to fill pages in between you and Grey fucking each other in every sense of the word.

Sweeney: Ana, I forget your sham accomplishments all the time too. It’s all right.

Lor: To celebrate, they are going to one of the apparently many clubs Grey owns as part of the Christian Grey Empire of Domestic Violence Emporiums. Once at the club Ana “flirts” with Grey by calling him sir. Seriously, her “flirtation” consists of, “why thank you, sir,” when Grey offers her some champagne. It’s really effective too, because Grey immediately orders her to go take off her panties. Ana goes to the bathroom to comply.

“I am excited already. Why does he affect me so? I slightly resent how easily I fall under his spell. I know now that we won’t be spending the evening talking through all our issues and recent events… but how can I resist him?”

I resent that I know that he’s going to use sex in a manipulative manner to avoid talking about our very serious issues… BUT I CAN’T RESIST. Ana looks at herself in the mirror and sees she’s bright eyed and flushed, so she thinks, “issues, schmissues.” I HATE HER SO MUCH.

Sweeney: Problems need never be resolved if you just have enough sex! Especially sex of the only-sort-of-consensual variety. Best problem-solver EVAR.

Lor: As she goes back out to meet Grey, she tells us that her Inner Goddess is “draped in a pink feather boa and diamonds, strutting her stuff in fuck-me shoes.” I always pair MY pink feather boa with diamonds. Gotta keep it classy.

Now panty-less, Ana goes back out to where Grey is sitting in the restaurant. He informs her that he’s already ordered for her and he hopes she doesn’t mind. Why would she mind now, Grey, when you’ve been ordering her food since almost two whole books ago? And look at that, he ordered oysters because we’ve already done this once already. He feeds her a few without touching her and it heats and bothers her. Then we’re told that her Inner Goddess is “on her knees, naked except for her panties- begging.” Was there a panty hand off? Did Ana take off her panties and give it to her Inner Goddess all, “Here! Don’t need them!”

Food is served and, again, it’s basically the same meal from chapter 13 of the first book. Ana brings up the NDA and he tells her to tear it up because he trusts her. She’s over the moon about that, but sad because Grey is purposefully not touching her.

“Missing my touch,” he asks grinning. He’s amused… the bastard.
“Yes,” I seethe.
“Eat,” he orders.
“You’re not going to touch me, are you?”
“No.” He shakes his head.
What? I gasp out loud.

She gasps OUT LOUD as opposed to that silent gasping that sometimes people do.

Sweeney: Since we started reading these books, I’ve been working on my silent gasping skills. It’s a smize-like thing. It’s a real thing, except for the part where it’s absolutely not at all gasping. Or a real thing.

Lor: I’ve never managed to master smizing so I’m going to go ahead and call silent gasping a failure too.

Oh, and she’s even going to eat her asparagus sexily again JUST LIKE CHAPTER 13 IN BOOK ONE. Look, we have to get pretty creative with snarking some of this stuff over and over, but THIS IS LEGIT THE SAME SCENE. THIS IS CHEATING. I ALREADY SNARKED THIS.

He orders her to finish all her food and she says, “okay.” Just kidding! She says she’s not hungry for food. Grey comments on how much weight Ana’s lost since they met. Ana: I don’t want to think about my weight; truth is I like being this slim. File that away.

Sweeney: And so does he, so these eating arguments are ultra-pointless. See: his long history of fucking identical ghost-like individuals, and the fact that he also gives her shit about needing to exercise. The food thing, like everything else, has absolutely nothing to do with concern for her and everything to do with being a controlling tremendodouche.

Lor: This happens after Ana finishes eating:

“Now? We leave. I believe you have certain expectations, Miss Steele. Which I intend to fulfill to the best of my ability.”
Whoa!
“The best… of your… a… bil… ity?” I stutter. Holy shit.
He grins and stands.

Yes… A….na. He… said… a…bil…ity.

They leave the club and Grey fingers Ana in an elevator full of people.

Sweeney: Not just full of people, but one that makes many stops to take on more people. “Why is this happening? What did I do to deserve this?” asks each of the dozen-ish people that are supposedly in there with them by the end.

Lor: All of those people knew they should’ve taken the damn stairs.

When they exit the elevator, Grey sucks his fingers and says Ana tastes “mighty fine.” He doesn’t know if he can wait to get Ana home and they might have sex in the car! Ana is all about that idea, which is your first clue that it isn’t going to happen.

“I’ve never had sex in a car,” I mumble. Christian halts and places those same fingers under my chin, tipping my head back and glaring down at me.
“I’m very pleased to hear that. I have to say I’d be very surprised, not to say mad, if you had.”
I flush, blunking up at him. Of course, I’ve only had sex with him. I frown at him.
“That’s not what I meant.”
“What did you mean?” His tone is unexpectedly harsh.
“Christian, it was just an expression.”
“The famous expression, ‘I’ve never had sex in a car.’ Yes, it just rips off the tongue.”

Fuck you, Christian Grey.

Sweeney: In the car he mentions that he could have fucked her in the bathroom and she’s all, “OMG LET’S GO BACK!” Because. What? I get that she now desperately wants to have sex, but I’m not sure why turning around to go back to the bathroom would be the obvious solution to that problem.

And to reiterate that “Fuck you, Christian Grey,” and the fact that Ana’s obvs not getting what he wants, before they go up he says, “We will fuck in the car at a time and place of my choosing.” Because he’s the actual worst.

Lor: They finally get back to Escala and Grey’s says he’s going to have sex with her all over the apartment.

“It’s like he’s addressing me below the wait… my inner goddess performs four arabesques and a pas de Basque.”

Ana finally asks Grey why he won’t touch her and what’s up with all the torture. He answers that it’s tit for tat, since she’s torturing him. He means by not answering his marriage proposal. He asks her what he can do to get her to say yes. Because yes, the house, the dinner, the sexy times- all of it- was a manipulation tactic to get Ana to accept his marriage proposal. Romance at it’s finest.

Sweeney: Grey also uses the words “you owe me,” at one point in all of this, because I hadn’t thrown anything yet this chapter.

Lor: They have sex on the foyer table. Nothing remarkable happens, unless you count Grey growling at Ana the whole time to keep her eyes open.

We then cut to them naked, in bed, talking about how their sex is totally better than everyone else’s. Because everyone else has jobs they go to, and friendships they maintain. Everyone else has self-control and self-esteem. Ana and Grey don’t have these things; they ignore their jobs, friends, and what is best for themselves, so clearly, this means that their sex is just better than everyone elses. Ana goes to sleep, dreaming of Overcompensation Hall and a little boy running through it.

The next day, Grey leaves for an early meeting and while Ana gets ready for work, she gets an idea for another present for Grey. She picks out a dress that is “cut quite low” and deems it appropriate for work, mostly because she’s an idiot. Ana starts rummaging through Grey’s drawers for some reason that has to do with this idea for a gift. In one of his bottom drawers, Ana finds a box full of photographs from the Red Womb of Domestic Violence. Later, she goes into the Red Womb to grab some items as part of her surprise, but the photographs are now haunting her. I’m torn here. I know that if I came across a box of pictures of my SO’s ex-girlfriends in sexual situations, I’d be very bothered. That’s the plain truth. On the other hand, they’ve only been dating a little over a month. On the other hand, he’s proposed marriage. On the other hand, he’s a murder.

Sweeney: There are so many things to consider! Pretty sure finding sexy photos of the girl he possibly just bathed in your apartment and gave your clothes to is fair cause to be mad at the guy you’re probably going to marry. That’s just a guess, though, because I haven’t really read the etiquette guide on dating murderers.

Lor: Maybe James will release that as a companion to this new journal.

At work, Ana sits down and starts emailing Grey. She says that she missed him but that the housekeeper was “accommodating,” so of course, right away, Grey wants to know what that means and what she’s planning. Ana replies that it is for his birthday, but she never hears back from him. Cut to the end of the work day and still no word. She calls and leaves a message and thinks about calling his PA, but decides that would be going too far. Just imagine, though, if the tables were turned and Ana didn’t reply to an email all day. Grey would hunt her down. He has hunted her down. For him, it’s romantic. If she calls more than once, it’s going too far.

Sweeney: -_-

Lor: Kate calls Ana, as she’s landed back in Seattle with Elliot. Ana invites her to drinks with Josecob that evening. We cut to Jose arriving at SIP to pick Ana up for said drinks, and of course he comments on how “grown-up” she looks, on account of she got her grown-up gene after fucking Christian Grey. Ana and Josecob go to a bar and make small talk I wish I could care about, if only for your sakes, but I ran out of fucks to give a long time ago.

Kate shows up with Ethan, looking gorgeous of course, and she too comments on how grown-up Ana looks. I guess emotional abuse, gun violence, and a marriage proposal really add years to a girl. Kate also comments about how Ana’s lost weight. “A lot of weight.” I am slightly disturbed by how much Ana’s weight is mentioned in these books, and mostly in recent chapters. We’re told Ana doesn’t eat for long periods of time, she’s never hungry and food is made such a big and awkward deal in this series. When you consider that “Ana” is the name of the community of people who glorify anorexia, shit gets creepy.

Ana promises to fill Kate in on all the details of her life later. Run, Kate. Run.

While at the bar, Kate gets a call from Elliot and he wants to speak to Ana.

“Ana.” Elliot’s voice is clipped and quiet, and my scalp prickles ominously.

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s Christian. He’s not back from Portland.”

 “What? What do you mean?”

“His helicopter has gone missing.”

“Charlie Tango?” I whisper as all the breath leaves my body. “No!”

AND THEN HE DIES.

Sweeney: OMG BEST EVER EVER.

 

Murmur Count – 21
Whisper Count – 13

Favorite comment last post: (In response to us saying Ana only got the promotion because of fucking Grey) So my question is…who is E.L. James fucking? Because that is pretty much her story of publication. Just curious. – Angi Black

 

Next time on Fifty Shades Darker: How many pages before we find out Christian still isn’t dead? Find out in Chapter 19.