Previously: These two idiots had a great IHOP date but Grey had to go home when a past submissive inconveniently almost killed herself.
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Jessica: It’s 2 a.m. and Grey can’t sleep. I can’t either, because his stupid ass is awake and I’m having to read about it, but here we are anyway. He’s busy mulling over ex-submissive Leila, his own “waking nightmare.” In typical Grey fashion, he spends only about .2 seconds (A: seven whole words!) thinking about Leila before making it all about him. Her pain reminds him of his pain as a teenager, or something.
He goes to his piano to play moody music. He’s upset that Ana’s not there, and he can’t just fuck himself into forgetfulness because, damn her, she never signed his contract. So now it’s becoming Ana’s fault, nice.
Marines: Ana’s fault for not being a perpetually available sex object.
Jessica: He wonders what she would think of Leila, since she’s so negative towards Elena. Dude, her problem with Elena is not that she’s your ex. Yeesh, clueless, this one.
As he continues playing, he starts to hallucinate/dream of Leila giving him a blow job. She’s all perfect and modest with eyes downcast. She morphs into Ana with all-seeing eyes and then becomes a monster, because she sees all his darkness or some crap.
Alex: This dream sequence is probably my favourite part of this whole chapter, just because I enjoy how Grey seems to dream in really terrible poetry. Observe:
Leila is servicing my cock with her mouth.
Her skilled mouth.
Her hands are tied behind her back.
Her hair braided.
The rest of the dream.
Continues.
In the same fashion.
Jessica: And now I’m imagining William Shatner reading this to bongos.
Grey then awakens with a start (and a painful boner). How much of the above was real, and how much a dream? (M: Also, did he fall asleep at the piano? Did he sleep walk back to the bed?) We don’t know and, more importantly, don’t care. Grey decides to go for a run after casting the briefest of thoughts as to if his housekeeper is ok from watching someone nearly kill themselves in front of her yesterday. Uh, she’s probably going to need at least the whole week off, Grey. Dick.
Timejump! to Grey at the office being annoyed by his secretary. No news of Leila except that her parents are still in the dark about her whereabouts and condition, which does not seem right at all. Ros arrives to talk business.
Timejump 2: The Jumpening! (M: I would’ve gone with 2 Jump 2 Furious, which shows you the kind of trashy person I am.)(J: A+) Ros exits the office and at least we didn’t have to go through an entire scene of fake business talk, right? Grey gets an email from Ana. As they go back and forth this time, the email subjects don’t change, but they also don’t have “Re:” in front of them like a normal email should. ELJ, if we have to read Christian Grey’s freakin’ signature every time, you’d think you could at least keep up the email charade on all the other details???
Nitpicking the emails helps with my rage.
Aaaanyway, it’s probably just the same emails as in the first book about how Ana’s coming home and wants to “torture” information out of him about the mysterious “situation” that took him away from crashing her mom visit. Then Grey is a dick and complains to her about using email when the plane’s about to take off, they go back and forth about his “twitchy palms” and this is all supposed to be romantic somehow.
Mari: Grey religiously keeps track of when Ana signs with an “x” because he really takes those kisses to heart. “Oh, no! My kiss is gone.” “YES! My kiss is back.” <– TRULY AND ACTUALLY INCLUDED IN THE STORY. I bet everyone is glad that E.L. wrote a whole ‘nother book or else we wouldn’t know that x’s are super important to Christian Grey, billionaire stalker boyfriend murderer extraordinaire.
Alex: Meanwhile I’ll just be over here giggling at the fact that Ana refers to her sleep-talking as ‘nocturnal admissions’.
Jessica: Timejump 3: Timejump Returns! It’s lunchtime and Grey decides to take a walk outside. He wonders why Leila decided to make everything so personal by making her suicide attempt specifically about him (eye-roll). He considers taking the day off, but there’s that pesky meeting with the mayor this afternoon (ok ELJ we get it, Grey’s a BFD in Seattle). Remembering an upcoming gala gives him an idea though, so he rushes off.
Timejump 4: Son of Timejump! Mayor meeting went great (fast forwarding through fake business talk again, which apparently even ELJ didn’t have patience for). Taylor’s picked Ana up at the airport and Grey chats with his housekeeper who still hasn’t been given any damn time off! She even has to put satin sheets on his playroom bed, poor thing.
Mari: Grey thinks, “huh, Gail doesn’t seem to like that,” and believe it has something to do with her opinions on Grey and Ana’s relationship instead of her opinions on having to go into his sometimes-play-sometimes-murder room.
Jessica: Grey goes to look at the diamond earrings he bought Ana, which were apparently what his previous great idea was, and absolutely nothing to do with Leila, as I had assumed. Apparently his thought process went: Leila missing → take off day to look for her? → mayor meeting → upcoming gala → shiny present idea for Ana! → squirrel! (that last one’s a hard maybe)
Grey hopes that Ana accepts his expensive gift. He’s annoyed that he can’t just force her to accept it as a submissive. He just has to wait for her natural reaction, like the rest of us humans.
He gets a call from Welch, his spymaster, who informs him that Leila’s husband thinks she’s away visiting her family. Grey looks out in despair over the whole of Seattle, in which she might be anywhere, and I just have to marvel at the extreme incompetence of this hospital that not only lost this poor woman but has failed to inform a single relation of her situation.
Alex: I marvel at E.L. James’ ability to make literally every single person in her story a complete and utter moron.
Jessica: Just then Grey’s spidey sense tingles and he turns to see Ana behind him. They maul each other in greeting and decide to take this party to the shower. He gets all conflicted over the shortness of her skirt, because he likes the view but she’s “for my eyes only.” Uuuuuugh.
Mari: “Be confident about your body because it’s yours except when it’s mine and also people can’t see your legs dammit.” — Christian Grey.
Jessica: Anyway, he decides he can’t wait for them to finish taking off their clothes and step two feet over into the shower, he must. have. her. now. And so much of this scene made me want to laugh; I’m no good at reading romance novels. Grey kisses “the sweet junction beneath her pubic hair” (lol) which makes her purr (lol again) and then as they reach the climax he “growl(s) out a garbled version of her name.” Um, whut? Her name isn’t exactly multi-syllabic like Henrietta or Gabrielle. It’s Ana. So how garbled can that possibly get? Agra? Olga? Arnyargh?
Mari: OMG, this whole time I thought Ana was saying ARGH! like a pirate, but what if she just cries out a garbled version of her own name during sex and now Grey has picked up this habit? That might be better than pirates, IDK.
Jessica: Ha, she cries out her own name? Oh Ana, we knew you were weird. Maybe it’s like when people shout their own names as battle cries.
Anywho, apparently the shower was on this whole time so the entire room is steamy (get it?). Now they undress and talk about boring things like how flying first class is super great. Ana tells him she has a job at the publishing company SIP (an acronym to join GEH, I suppose) while Grey mentally chides her for seeming to think he’d be upset by this and vocally denies his stalker tendencies, even when she calls them “stalking capabilities” right out. Then he thinks gleefully about how SIP (nope, can’t type that with a straight face) is “ripe for takeover” so his stalking job will be easy. Fuck you, sir. Fuck you.
Mari: Imagine if SIP weren’t ripe for takeover and he would have to, I don’t know, work or something? Or, like, not take it over?
Jessica: He’d just move it to Georgia or wherever Ana was going on vacation next.
He washes her in the shower and feels her shoulders tense as she mentions Josecob’s upcoming photography show that she said she’d go to, and she asks him to come. He’s momentarily stunned because he never gets invitations from anyone besides his parents, Elena and work-related people. What? There is no way that is true. So random. (M: I mean… would you invite a murderer to your dinner party?) (M: Wait, I better add: unless you’re Ana?) He agrees to go, so everyone can relax now. Oh wait, I didn’t care.
Ana asks if she can wash him, or if she’ll ever be able to touch him, but he feels the bad swirly darkness and says nope, no way. He focuses instead on how hot she looks naked and they go at it again. At one point he tells her to “hold fast” and I start laughing all over again. (M: We’re back to pirates.)
They dry off and head out to the kitchen, where Gail the housekeeper has made dinner. Grey’s getting some judge-y vibes from her but chooses to ignore them. He distracts Ana from her embarrassment of being around the housekeeper in her bathrobe, with a bottle of wine. He asks for more information about Josecob the photographer but Ana is reluctant to reveal much. She asks about “the situation” but he shuts that down quickly as well.
Alex: Wow, those are some A+ communication skills. I can totally see how these two are the romantic couple that everyone wants to aspire to.
Jessica: And aren’t you glad we have an entire new book to bring us these non-revelations?
Instead of using his words, Grey gives Ana 15 minutes to get ready for the playroom. I feel like they should wait longer between eating a bunch of clams before heading in there, like how you should wait to swim after eating, but what do I know? (M: They are definitely going to catch a cramp. AND THEN THEY DIE.) (J: The way that playroom’s set up, that might be something that could happen.)
She heads off and Grey checks his emails, including sending one to Ros to acquire the SIP publishing company right away. Man, this guy is a douche.
Mari: I’m marginally impressed (like, in that gross way) about how quickly he moves. He JUST found out Ana is working there and takes a few minutes between dinner and sex to start the acquisition process. That’s dedication to the stalker craft, y’all.
Jessica: He then runs to put on his favorite pair of DomJeans – or DJs as they were previously hilariously referred to. He grabs his iPod and runs upstairs to his playroom. Ana is there, kneeling in the submissive corner, only in her underwear. He’s relieved and proud. He decides to do a sensory deprivation thing, and suddenly I think I know what scene this is. He reminds her of the safe words (yellow and red) and when she seems to be about to get sassy with him he threatens to punish her, so she says “yes sir” instead.
He gets the iPod and earphones ready and realizes he just needs to choose a song. “Let’s see if she likes some Tudor choral music.” I’m sorry, I really can’t stop laughing at all these ridiculous lines. What is this even?
He braids her hair and lets her seductively stroke his favorite flogger (no that’s not a euphemism). Then he strips her and ties her onto the bed, adding the blindfold and earbuds. Then the church music starts and he caresses her with a fur-lined glove. Next he switches to the flogger and kind of gently taps at her skin with it, which she seems to enjoy. Then he jumps on and they do it all to the rhythm of the Tudor choral music.
Mari: I feel like “Tudor choral music” needs to be a comeback or interjection of some kind, but I haven’t quite worked out what it means. Suggestions welcome.
Jessica: I feel like it’s the punchline used when, in a TV show, they don’t tell us a joke but just cut straight to a nonsensical phrase and everyone starts laughing. “And she said, ‘Tudor choral music!'” (M: *canned laughter!)
Cuddling in bed (with her now untied), they talk about what Ana supposedly did or didn’t say in her sleep two chapters ago, and flirt a bit. Grey admits he’s bad at telling jokes, which definitely has to be true. Then he wraps her in her bathrobe and carries her downstairs to the bedroom. Meanwhile, he deals with some “ominous” feels that he can’t explain. And which I won’t either because huzzah, my chapter is done! Until next week, suckers!
Trauma Flashback: This chapter coincides with Chapter 25 of Fifty Shades of Grey, which starts with Ana boarding the plane to come back to Seattle.
- The exact same emails before her flight takes off
- While waiting for the plane to get going, Ana realizes that she desperately needs Christian Grey’s love more than anything else ever.
- Not long after this, she wonders if Grey bought the seat next to her to keep her from talking to anyone. She laughs it off as too crazy even for him but girl, if that thought even comes with any ounce of seriousness– RED GODDAMN FLAG.
- Taylor picks Ana up from the airport and they have an awkward conversation in the car.
- When she and Christian reunite and kiss, Ana remarks that he smells of “body wash and Christian”
- I discover that Mari and Sweeney both found the Ana-version of the shower sex scene as hilarious as I did.
- Ana starts off terrified in the playroom. But that soon changes to horny, so, yay?
- Ana has sex fantasies about Grey’s feet
- Waiting for the music to be chosen, Ana merely hopes it’s not rap.
Baby count: I forgot, and I’m not reading it again. (M: Kindle does the counting for me: 8)
Next time on Grey: Grey chases Ana so he can spank her on Saturday June 4, 2011.
I'm a chronic book nerd and love storytelling in all forms. I'm particularly excited by the rise of the television show as an art form with long, cinematically beautiful plots and complex character arcs (I also watch cartoons). My travels in the past handful of years have led me through three continents and most recently landed me among the majestic mountains of Colorado. Some day I will compile all my travel journals/blogs into one place. Some day. Until then, you can find me with craft beer in hand, ready at any moment to deeply and passionately discuss survival tactics for the zombie apocalypse.
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.
I'm a thirty-year-old postgrad living in Scotland. When I'm not writing (which, between my degree and Snark Squad, is almost never) I watch entirely too much TV, and live in constant fear of the day that I run out of things to watch.