Fifty Shades of Fail: Chapter Twenty-Four
Sep. 15th, 2012 11:15 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
astra_auroraHey, everyone. Sorry this is late, but I watched To Boldly Flee last night and I felt so burned out and numb that I just couldn't do anything other than writing some fanfic and feeling bad. Anyway, here's chapter twenty-four.
We begin with Ana having a dream where Christian's in a cage, trying to feed her a strawberry, but she's being held back by some unseen force. Wow, how obviously symbolic. *ducks an anvil with 'SEE WHAT I DID THERE?' etched on it*
And then he wakes her up.
"Wake up, baby," he whispers, and the effect of his sweet voice spreads like warm melted caramel through my veins.
Um... that would kill you. Ugh. He's not Willy Wonka.
So, Grey wakes her up, they talk a bit about 'Did you just wake me up at 5.30 AM for sex?' (he didn't) and she tells him about her dream.
To hell with Dr Flynn- Freud would have a field day- and then he'd probably die trying to deal with Fifty Shades.
Uh, no. Freud would have a session with him, and then he'd look at Ana and ask 'This is all you've got? Heh, call me back when you've got something interesting for me to look at.'
After a not-breakfast (to be fair, I do get where Ana's coming from when she says that 5.30 AM is too early to eat for her), they head out. For once, Grey's not driving an Audi, it's just a 'flashy sports car'. He plays a piece from La Traviata, but Ana knows the source story and it's too depressing, so he lets her pick a new song. She picks 'Toxic' by Britney Spears, and after he says that he didn't put the song on his iPod, we then get some information. Leila, one of his ex-subs, put it on his iPod. Like Ana, Leila wanted more, but Grey didn't.
"What happened to the other fourteen?" I ask.
Jeez, he's talking- take advantage.
"You want a list? Divorced, beheaded, died?"
"You're not Henry VIII."
I don't know, Ana. He's coming pretty close. (FTR, the bolding was Ana's thoughts, which, like her inner voices, are in italics in the book.)
"Okay. In no particular order, I've only had long-term relationships with four women, apart from Elena."
"Elena?"
"Mrs Robinson to you." He half-smiles his secret-private-joke smile.
Elena! Holy fuck. The evil one has a name and it's all foreign sounding. A vision of a glorious, pale-skinned vamp with raven hair and ruby-red lips comes to mind, and I know that she's beautiful. I must not dwell. I must not dwell.
OK, 'Elena' and its variants are all derivatives of the Greek name 'Helen' or 'Helene', so OK, it is at least a foreign name (though 'foreign sounding' makes me want to punch something- way to throw out the racism, James). But, here's the thing: No, Ana, you do not know the current status of her physical attractiveness. You had a brief idea of what she might look like. You are not a reality warper.
Christ.
Anyway, Ana asks him about the other four. Three wanted more, which he wasn't in the market for. One met someone else, and all of the other fifteen just didn't work out.
Grey's surprise is quite unexpected: they're going gliding. Um... you need to make sure of shit first, Grey. Like 'Are you claustrophobic or afraid of heights or falling?'
Of course, he's strapped me in so tightly I can't move around to see him... typical!
That... really doesn't sound safe to me.
The plane banks and turns as the wing dips, and we spiral toward the sun. Icarus. This is it. I am flying close to the sun, but he's with me, leading me.
For those of you who don't know, the story of Icarus goes like this: the master craftsman Daedalus tries to escape, and he makes two sets of wings for himself and his son, Icarus. He tells Icarus that he can't fly too close to either the sun or the sea, and he needs to follow his father's flight path. Icarus is so overcome with the joy of flight that he goes too high up, the sun destroys his wings and he falls into the sea and dies.
Way to completely fuck that one up, James.
They go to IHOP. The waitress is overcome by the sheer sight of Grey, and I really hate him. After the food, he drops her back at her mother's house, and they have an email-conversation. It's actually quite funny because not only are they still bantering via the subject lines, Grey keeps editing his automatic signature so that instead of saying 'Christian Grey, CEO, Grey Enterprises Holdings, Inc.' it says things like 'Christian Grey, CEO, Cad and Scoundrel, Grey Enterprises Holdings, Inc.' James, why do you have to do so many decent jokes in the middle of all this fail?
Ana gets the job at the publishing company she wants to work for. Grey calls- something's come up and he has to go back to Seattle. Later in the afternoon, they have another email conversation where they taunt each other about nothing, and then the chapter ends.
Well, that was Chapter Twenty-Four. Two more to go.
We begin with Ana having a dream where Christian's in a cage, trying to feed her a strawberry, but she's being held back by some unseen force. Wow, how obviously symbolic. *ducks an anvil with 'SEE WHAT I DID THERE?' etched on it*
And then he wakes her up.
"Wake up, baby," he whispers, and the effect of his sweet voice spreads like warm melted caramel through my veins.
Um... that would kill you. Ugh. He's not Willy Wonka.
So, Grey wakes her up, they talk a bit about 'Did you just wake me up at 5.30 AM for sex?' (he didn't) and she tells him about her dream.
To hell with Dr Flynn- Freud would have a field day- and then he'd probably die trying to deal with Fifty Shades.
Uh, no. Freud would have a session with him, and then he'd look at Ana and ask 'This is all you've got? Heh, call me back when you've got something interesting for me to look at.'
After a not-breakfast (to be fair, I do get where Ana's coming from when she says that 5.30 AM is too early to eat for her), they head out. For once, Grey's not driving an Audi, it's just a 'flashy sports car'. He plays a piece from La Traviata, but Ana knows the source story and it's too depressing, so he lets her pick a new song. She picks 'Toxic' by Britney Spears, and after he says that he didn't put the song on his iPod, we then get some information. Leila, one of his ex-subs, put it on his iPod. Like Ana, Leila wanted more, but Grey didn't.
"What happened to the other fourteen?" I ask.
Jeez, he's talking- take advantage.
"You want a list? Divorced, beheaded, died?"
"You're not Henry VIII."
I don't know, Ana. He's coming pretty close. (FTR, the bolding was Ana's thoughts, which, like her inner voices, are in italics in the book.)
"Okay. In no particular order, I've only had long-term relationships with four women, apart from Elena."
"Elena?"
"Mrs Robinson to you." He half-smiles his secret-private-joke smile.
Elena! Holy fuck. The evil one has a name and it's all foreign sounding. A vision of a glorious, pale-skinned vamp with raven hair and ruby-red lips comes to mind, and I know that she's beautiful. I must not dwell. I must not dwell.
OK, 'Elena' and its variants are all derivatives of the Greek name 'Helen' or 'Helene', so OK, it is at least a foreign name (though 'foreign sounding' makes me want to punch something- way to throw out the racism, James). But, here's the thing: No, Ana, you do not know the current status of her physical attractiveness. You had a brief idea of what she might look like. You are not a reality warper.
Christ.
Anyway, Ana asks him about the other four. Three wanted more, which he wasn't in the market for. One met someone else, and all of the other fifteen just didn't work out.
Grey's surprise is quite unexpected: they're going gliding. Um... you need to make sure of shit first, Grey. Like 'Are you claustrophobic or afraid of heights or falling?'
Of course, he's strapped me in so tightly I can't move around to see him... typical!
That... really doesn't sound safe to me.
The plane banks and turns as the wing dips, and we spiral toward the sun. Icarus. This is it. I am flying close to the sun, but he's with me, leading me.
For those of you who don't know, the story of Icarus goes like this: the master craftsman Daedalus tries to escape, and he makes two sets of wings for himself and his son, Icarus. He tells Icarus that he can't fly too close to either the sun or the sea, and he needs to follow his father's flight path. Icarus is so overcome with the joy of flight that he goes too high up, the sun destroys his wings and he falls into the sea and dies.
Way to completely fuck that one up, James.
They go to IHOP. The waitress is overcome by the sheer sight of Grey, and I really hate him. After the food, he drops her back at her mother's house, and they have an email-conversation. It's actually quite funny because not only are they still bantering via the subject lines, Grey keeps editing his automatic signature so that instead of saying 'Christian Grey, CEO, Grey Enterprises Holdings, Inc.' it says things like 'Christian Grey, CEO, Cad and Scoundrel, Grey Enterprises Holdings, Inc.' James, why do you have to do so many decent jokes in the middle of all this fail?
Ana gets the job at the publishing company she wants to work for. Grey calls- something's come up and he has to go back to Seattle. Later in the afternoon, they have another email conversation where they taunt each other about nothing, and then the chapter ends.
Well, that was Chapter Twenty-Four. Two more to go.
