Previously: Ana and Grey were involved in a high speed chase and it made them horny, so they had snotty car-sex after they lost their pursuer.
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Lorraine: Sweeney and I have developed a sort of unofficial game when it comes to handing off chapters. Mostly it involves pointing and laughing at whatever atrocities the other person has to endure. I mean, we’re totally friends and everything, but you can’t deny the little bit of satisfaction that comes when your chapter fades on sex and you think, “YES. I AM SPARED.” That all said, Sweeney is currently winning this game because her chapter ended riiight before our two main idiots decide to head back into the Red Womb of Domestic Violence.
You win this round, Sweeney.
Sweeney: That’s all entirely true. I can’t gloat too much, though, because now I also have to read it. The lines of “winning” and “losing” are all a bit blurry here. But yes, I will go ahead and take comfort in knowing that I only have to skim it.
Lor: It isn’t a very well thought out game. You basically lose one week and REALLY lose the next.
On that note: Grey asks Ana if she has anything in mind for their upcoming round of sexy times. She shrugs her shoulders and Grey immediately interprets that reaction as asking for “kinky fuckery.” Ana is super embarrassed by her desire to participate in said fuckery and she doesn’t get why! Grey whisper-asks if he has “carte blanche” which is French for permission to murder her. She says yes, yes he does.
Sweeney: A+ for that. Also, I know they’ve been abusing the word for so many chapters now that we’ve taken to ignoring it, but I just want to remind everyone, once again, of the fact that E. L. James can’t even use “fuckery” correctly, because it happens so many times in so few sentences.
Lor: It isn’t even a real word. SHE CAN’T EVEN USE FAKE WORDS CORRECTLY.
Ana and Grey head off to the Red Womb. She tells us all the standard stuff about the room (it’s red! Soft lighting! It smells like leather! She’s so embarrassed! etc) and he asks what she wants because he needs a chapterly confirmation that she doesn’t have any actual opinions, just the way he likes it. She says that all she wants is him, and he can surprise her during the sex. He starts to take off her clothes and Ana is suddenly all, “WAIT! HAIR BRAIDING PARTY TIME!”
Did we tell you about the time I got so curious about the general hair braiding skillz of penis-wielding human beings that I took the question to Twitter? We got a lot of, “I definitely could… in theory.” responses. A few dudes said they could because of having little sisters. We even got an Instagramed picture of one guy’s attempt to braid his girlfriend’s hair. It was pretty not great. This was another little worthless tangent that really was for the purpose of giving me a reading break and also to remind everyone that we are generally dubious of Grey’s hair braiding abilities.
Sweeney: Also a reminder that we have amazing hobbies and are the best deciders of how to spend our time out of anyone ever. With the glaring exception of reading this book. We do it to bring balance into the world, for all of our other amazing hobbies, like surveying our Twitter friends and secretly wondering if any of them have Christian-Grey-like tendencies. That fell apart on me so quickly.
Lor: It was such a good try, though. One has to admire that.
Once Ana is in just her underwear, Grey starts sniffing her thigh and he comments that she smells of, “you [Ana] and me [Grey] and sex.” SAY WUH? Ana has a smell too and it’s Ana?
Grey makes Ana face a wall so she won’t know what’s coming. She tries to listen closely to his movements.
Sweeney: Because she’s facing a wall, she suddenly develops super-power-status hearing so that she can continue her excessive narration of details she can’t see. After she hears “the telltale clatter” of his shoes (I can’t even with that description) she gets all excited because she loves barefoot Christian. Am I missing something? Was she expecting him to keep his shoes on during sex? Or is this just part of her standard thing of getting excited about Christian being naked-except-for-the-part-where-he’s-not?
She also says the words, “It makes no sense” right around this time. We agree, Ana.
Lor: To prevent Ana from using any more of her super hearing powers, Grey turns on some music. It’s a man singing about not being afraid to die because that’s soothing and sexy. (S: And a woman is also either wailing or singing in the song too! Hawt!)
Aaaand now Sweeney’s comment has made me decide to do one second of Internet research. The song is Pink Floyd’s “The Great Gig in the Sky,” described in the most murdery way possible. I linked the song for you all for the next time you have sex. You are welcome.
Grey gets Ana to promise that she’ll speak up if anything gets too rough. He blindfolds her, finishes undressing her and instructs her to lay across a table. If she lets go of the edge of the table, Grey is going to spank her. He wants to know if that’s what she wants. It is, but she isn’t able to come up with a reason when he asks why. So he spanks her.
Have I mentioned that Sweeney loses less and I lose the most? Okay then. In that case I can continue to tell you that he lubes her asshole for an entire goddamn page and the whole time, she’s super confused by anything happening near or around her asshole. I was under the mistaken impression that they had participated in some sort of anal play, but I guess they’ve just talked about it a lot without having gotten there. Because you can’t dive into someone’s ass. You can lube it up for forever, though, and then jam a butt plug in there.
Sweeney: Lor sent me an email about how she felt bad complaining so much about such a short chapter, and wishing she had a way to say, “This chapter all about anal lube wasn’t THAT bad.”
(1) Not possible. (2) I can now confirm, at a third of the way through, that yeah, it’s that bad. I “win” except for the part where we all lose.
Lor: In retrospect, I can hardly believe I wrote those words. I was probably high on it at least ending quickly.
Anyways, Ana keeps referring to her anus as “there.” As I was reading this, I was so upset by all the bullshit writing that I decided to take my frustrations to Twitter.
I got a few favorites, replies and RT’s but then.
BUT THEN.
THIS HAPPENED LIKE 10 MINUTES AGO SO I’M STILL VIOLENTLY LOL’ing.
Sweeney: A couple days later IT IS STILL THAT HILARIOUS. Best. Ever. Expect us to mention this moment at least a dozen more times in the coming chapters.
Lor: I mentioned it between 5 and 50 times that day alone, so yes. Absolutely, yes.
I’m pretty sure EL was reading the Tweet where I called her writing into question and accidentally hit the follow button. A couple of minutes later she had promptly unfollowed me.
DOESN’T MATTER. BEST EVER. This is kind of like that one time RL Stine called Sara a very disturbed young lady. Plus, I’m pretty sure this means that this blog is now officially approved by EL James herself.
Grey and Ana have rough sex and we know this because she says “rough sex” like a billion times.
After that’s all done three thrusts and some coming again and again later, Ana and Grey lie on the floor and basically have this conversation:
Did you like that rough sex Mrs. Grey?
Yes, Mr. Grey. I am well fucked.
OOOOOH! MAMA MIA PAPA PIA. YOU SAID FUCKED, MRS. GREY.
LOLOLOL, MR. GREY!
Sweeney: This is just shy of a direct quote. You should probably write fanfic and then do a Find + Replace to swap out the character names so you can publish it. I bet you’ll make millions.
Lor: And why not? It’s riveting stuff. I should go Tweet my new BFF EL and ask her for all her sweet plagiarism tips.
Ana asks Grey about his special jeans he used to wear in the playroom, and if he’ll ever wear them for her again. Maybe, he says. Let’s hope that happens in a Sweeney chapter.
SORRY NOT SORRY.
Sweeney: Bitch.
Lor: LOVEYOUMEANIT.
Ana asks who washes the sex toys, and Grey says usually him or the housekeeper, Mrs. Jones. I wonder if when Grey hired Mrs. Jones to be a HOUSE keeper, he mentioned that she might have to wash fecal matter off of his sex toys occasionally.
Ana guesses that his subs used to do it before that. I’m not sure how she feels about this, because all of her feelings and opinions are forgotten when Grey hands her one of his shirts to wear and it smells like Christian. One cannot be expected to have real thoughts when confronted with the aroma of Christian!
Sweeney: Sorry, she actually does sort of tell us how she feels about it and I can’t let it pass because I just had an “I read Twilight” giggle-fit. One of Stephenie Meyer’s most abused words — we’d have to take a count for this if we were snarking Twilight — is “chagrin.” I have never been able to see that word the same, and I find it hilarious whenever E. L. James uses it, because you can’t write BELLA without excessive CHAGRIN! So naturally, that’s how she feels about the great question of butt-plug cleaning. Chagrin! It’s all the more hilarious when I remember that Meyer’s book is one big chastity message. Bella’s chagrin has moved from “ZOMG Edward Cullen’s eyes are black today!” to “Who cleans Edward Cullen’s butt plugs?”
Lor: And now I will never see that word the same again. I guess that’s pay back.
The Greys head off to take a bath and Ana realizes she’s finally had enough sex to make her feel better about that one time she was on the bad end of a car chase. Grey asks her what’s on her mind and she tells him she feels better. This is an excuse for him to be all pained and haunted at the thought of losing her, and for her to be all, “NO. BUT WHAT IF I LOST YOU?” Probably they should just kill each other on the count of three and solve that problem.
Ana keeps asking questions about the car chase, but Grey really, really wants to take a bath. They climb into the tub and the hot water makes Ana wince, but Grey tells her to take it easy. “As he says it, the uncomfortable sensation melts away.” That’s some A+ magic right there. Like, sure, if you are in a relationship with Grey you will be physically and emotionally abused, but bath water will never be too hot. Think about it. (S: A+)
After the bath, Ana decides to go get her clothes from the playroom and overhears Grey yelling at Sawyer (one of the security guards) in his study. Ana doesn’t want to hear that so she runs up to the playroom. She sees her recently used butt plug and figures she might as well clean it. From buttplug, Ana for some reason starts thinking about how Taylor is spending time with his daughter, and she wonders if she’ll ever meet her.
Sweeney: Ew. You leave Baby Power Ranger out of your weird butt plug thoughts, Ana.
Lor: Ana runs into Mrs. Jones, who calls her Mrs. Grey AND THIS SURPRISES ANA. Grey called her Mrs. Grey about 10 times in this chapter alone, so fuck you. NO SURPRISE. Mrs. Jones wants to discuss some matters of the house, like menus for the week and grocery shopping, but Ana is useless and mostly thinks, “UGH. I have to go wash this butt plug right now, gosh!” Ana runs up to her bedroom and does finally get to wash her butt plug. Phew.
Line break to the library where Ana is working at her new desk. She’s dreading going back to work, mostly because she now knows for sure that she only has her position because she’s married to Grey. Soon after telling her boss that she was getting married to the owner of the company, she magically went from acting editor to editor. Despite this, she’s decided not to change her name at work so she can continue to pretend like she has some sort of skill or merit or whatever. She hasn’t “plucked up the courage” to tell her loving, kind and understanding husband that she wants to keep her name for professional reasons.
Sweeney: I can’t even pretend to be surprised by the fact that this is going to be a fight. I hate him.
Lor: And the reasons to hate him keep on coming.
Ana starts uploading their honeymoon pictures from her camera to her laptop. They take her by surprise because there are a ton of pictures of her sleeping, including some where she’s sucking her thumb, which is not strange or infantilizing at all. I wonder if Grey even sleeps, or if he just waits for Ana to fall asleep so he can spend a solid 8 hours taking pictures of her. He probably posed her with the thumb in the mouth.
Sweeney: This part was so creepy.
Lor: As she looks through the rest of the pictures we cycle through calling Grey hot, Ana telling us how much she loves him, and end with her suddenly gasp-sobbing at the thought of someone trying to hurt Grey. At that moment, she decides to go check if he’s safe!
Grey’s on the phone with Barnery and not being chased by car in his study. Phew. Ana goes over to him and climbs in his lap so that he has to put his phone call on hold to ask WTF is wrong with her. She’s all, “nothing!” so Grey continues his phone call and plays with some security camera footage on his laptop from the time someone set fire to his office. Did we mention the fire in his office? ‘Cause there was totally a fire in his office. The footage is being zoomed in on and enhanced.
Of course, Ana is able to recognize the arsonist (not to be confused with the panty arson) as none other than her ex-boss, Jack Hyde. That is supposedly such a big and shocking revelation, we must end the chapter there. Not that I am complaining.
I’m off to go Tweet at EL James more selections of her own book. It’s kind of like when a dog poops indoors and you show it to him and say, “look at what you did.”
Murmur Count – 7
Whisper Count – 15
Favorite comment last post: Has no one set EL James up on a blind/notsoblind date with Dan Brown yet?! Something tells me they would totally hit it off, and their wedding vows would be amazing…EL: ‘I loved you from the moment I saw your trousers hanging from your hips, and realised you smelled like Dan.’ Dan: ‘The church we are marrying in has a sixteenth century flagstone floor. After we wed we shall get into a AH-60 Apache Helecopter. And our marriage is a Christian conspiracy.’
Next time on Fifty Shades Freed: Sweeney gets a chapter with food, a reference to pregnancy, a return to work AND emails. Everyone loses in Chapter 07.
I'm a 30-something south Floridan who loves the beach but cannot swim. Such is my life, full of small contradictions and little trivialities. My main life goals are never to take life too seriously, but to do everything I attempt seriously well. After that, my life goals devolve into things like not wearing pants and eating all of the Zebra Cakes in the world. THE WORLD.
Nicole is the co-captain of Snark Squad and these days she spends most of her time editing podcasts. She spends too much time on Twitter and very occasionally vlogs and blogs. In her day job she's a producer, editor, director, and sometimes host of educational YouTube channels. She loves travel, maps, panda gifs, and semicolons. Writing biographies stresses her out; she crowd sourced this one years ago and has been using a version of it ever since. She would like to thank Twitter for their help.
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