If Ariel spoils any of the new Arrested Development for me, this blog is over.
Chapter Nineteen
When we last left our heroes (man, I never get sick of writing that), Ana’s dad was in a coma for two chapters, because E L James has a pretty firm grasp on narrative pacing. He just woke up at the end of the last chapter, thus resolving all of the narrative tension in the story, so James has to create another plot point to be resolved in two to three chapters.
Yes, if you read Ariel’s post yesterday you already know it’s that Ana’s pregnant, but we knew that was going to happen since, like, the first page of the first book. Let me have this.
“You haven’t stopped smiling,” Christian says
Uh… her dad just came out of a coma. Use your context clues, Christian.
“What would you like to do now?” His voice is soft.
“What do you want to do?”
He raises an eyebrow, amused. “What I always want to do.”
Honestly, I did get really worried last chapter when it was 1) Ana’s birthday, 2) Fifty Shades, and somehow that didn’t lead to 3) birthday sex, so, yep, now it’s time to make up for lost time, I suppose. Brace yourselves for Fifty Shades birthday/dad’s out of a coma sex, readers.
It’s gonna be special.
Let’s see what kind of horror we’re in for this time. Ana says something really stupid to describe Christian Grey:
He tastes of white wine and apple pie and Christian.
And continues to do so, although this time sounding less “this is sexy” and a little more “the floor is lava”:
He gives me a brief hot, intense look and turns on his heel, stalking toward the bedroom. Oh… Christian barefoot. Why are his feet so hot?
So what sort of crazy crazy sex does the crazy crazy erotic sensation of Fifty Shades of Grey do for Ana’s crazy crazy birthday sex? They have sex on… the couch! But that’s not all! Christian ties her up with a belt… from a bathrobe! Okay, here, it’s way hotter when Ana explains it.
Oh my… I am sitting up, splayed out on the sofa, legs spread wide.
Okay, never mind. Just never mind. So Ana’s descriptions of her sex life are very clinical sometimes. That’s nothing new. Maybe things will pick up.
Why doesn’t he touch me?
“Good,” he murmurs. “Hold out your hands.” I can’t look away from his mesmerizing eyes as I do what he asks. Christian pours a little oily liquid onto each palm from a small clear bottle. It’s scented—a rich, musky, sensuous scent that I can’t place.
“Rub your hands.” I squirm beneath his hot, heavy gaze. “Keep still,” he warns.
Oh my.
“Now, Anastasia, I want you to touch yourself.”
That’s right. For Ana’s birthday sex, Christian make things interesting by basically telling her to just do it herself.
Furthermore, Christian tells Ana how to touch herself, because people think this book is empowering for women or something.
My hands cup my breasts.
“Tease yourself.”
Oh my. I tug gently on my nipples.
“Harder,” Christian urges. He sits immobile between my thighs, just watching me. “Like I would,”
Now, the problem isn’t that he wants her to touch herself in front of him. Without getting too “sex blog” on you guys (because pffft like I know what I’m talking about), healthy sexual relationships often involve understanding how the other person understands their body. Women who have difficultly reaching orgasm generally don’t understand their body well enough in this way, although this isn’t really what I’m trying to write about right now (god, I hope my parents don’t read the blog today). The main point I’m trying to get at here is that – just like every other goddamn sex scene in this piece of shit – all that ever happens is Christian telling Ana what to do, and here it is down to telling her to play with her nipples “like I would”. Throughout three books, Ana has never gotten to call the shots or even explore her own body by her goddamn self. Hell, she never even orgasms without Christian telling her to do so.
“Surrender,” Christian whispers.
I explode around his fingers, crying out incoherently. He presses the heel of his hand against my clitoris as the aftershocks run through my body, prolonging the delicious agony.
Anyway, remember how I don’t write a sex blog? Let’s get back to that.
Ana and Christian talk more about how Ana loves Christian even though Christian can’t believe it (When the fuck is he going to catch on? By this point it’s like he has amnesia or something), and then they have more sex.
I lean down and whisper in his ear, “I am going to fuck you with my mouth.”
and there was much rejoicing
The next day Christian gets an email about talking to a detective about Jack Hyde (Ana’s boss/plot device that was used to set up this sequel and was completely resolved 1/3 of the way into it), then they go visit Ana’s dad, who wants doughnut, so they go get the man who came out of an induced coma following a near-fatal car crash less than 24 hours ago a doughnut, which seems medically sound.
The detective comes and interviews Ana because Jack Hyde has claimed that Ana sexually harassed him. Ana laughs. This is going well!
“Mrs. Grey, Mr. Hyde maintains that you sexually harassed him and made several lewd advances toward him.”
Oh! I almost burst out laughing, but put my hand on Christian’s thigh to restrain him as he shifts forward in his seat.
“That’s preposterous,” Christian splutters. I squeeze Christian’s leg to silence him.
Ana describes how Jack sexually assaulted her and she defended herself. The detective discusses how they’ve interviewed Jack’s previous five personal assistants and while none of the lasted more than three months, none of them said anything about sexual harassment. Christian then goes all “yeah, me too” and talks about how he sent his private security team out to interview these women too, which… I know nothing about the law but this seems kind of like a weird thing to talk about with the police? Like “yeah, I’ve already investigated this and couldn’t come up with anything either! Isn’t that weird?”
Ana’s father, Ray, is moved to a hospital back home, where Ana runs into her doctor. Apparently Ana’s missed four appointments for her birth control shot. Don’t worry if this is a complete surprise to you, because it’s a complete surprise to Ana, our narrator, too. Because of the delays, Ana has to take a pregnancy test.
“What does blue mean?” The tension is almost choking me.
She looks up at me, her eyes serious. “Well, Mrs. Grey, it means you’re pregnant.”
What? No. No. No. Fuck.
And the chapter ends! CLIFFHANGER!
Except by “tomorrow” we mean “next week”, and no reading ahead on your own. THIS BLOG HAS RULES.
