Fifty Shades Darker Chapter 05 – Fictional death.

Previously: We found out that the Christian Grey Empire of Domestic Violence Emporiums has three salons. FANCY.

Lorraine: Ana is trying get information from the receptionist and confirms that the gorgeous woman Christian is talking to is indeed Mrs. Rape, whom Ana calls Mrs. Robinson, whose real name is Elena Lincoln.

Sweeney: Sorry, I know we can’t stop for every stupid thing Ana says because there are too many, but she begins this chapter by telling us that her “scalp is trying to leave the building” and while I have no fucking clue what that even means, it sounds like a way that Ana could die, and I’m SO FAR BEYOND the point of caring if I suck for rooting for a fictional character to die, because, well, it’s Ana.

Lor: Please never apologize. “My scalp is trying to leave the building” is something everyone should be exposed to.

Ana is super relieved to know that she correctly guessed that this woman is Mrs. Rape.

“I’m swamped by a strange sense of relief that my spidey sense has not let me down.
Spidey sense? My subconscious snorts. Paedo sense.“

1.) That’s a strange emotion to have at the moment. “Hey, I think that’s the woman who statutory raped Christian. Oh it is her! I guessed right! PHEW.”

2.) Girl, all your senses have let you down. Trust me. All of them.

3.) I refuse to believe Ana has a “paedo sense” because a.) she wouldn’t be able to live with her own constant reference to children near/around sex and b.) how the hell could she have a “paedo sense” but not a “holy shit he’s going to kill me soon sense?”

4.) EL: Us silly Americans, like me, Sweeney OH YEAH AND YOUR CHARACTER, would probably spell it “pedophile.”

Ana watches as Grey and Mrs. Rape chat and she’s angry. Mrs. Rape has the balls to turn to Ana and smile at her and that would’ve been the point I would’ve taken off my earrings and asked her if she wanted to go.

Sweeney: BEST. Also, due to Ana’s tininess, she would totally lose this fight. And then she dies. Probably. Hopefully.

Lor: Mrs. Rape says something to Grey that makes him end the conversation. After Mrs. Rape leaves, Ana asks if Grey was planning on introducing them. Grey apologizes, as he didn’t know Mrs. Rape would be there. Ana exits the salon and has to “suppress the impulse to run.”  You’ve murdered that impulse little one, as evidenced by you still being here and not in fact running away. Ana says she wants to escape all the “fuckedupness.”

Sweeney: Not that I’m going to deny that hanging out with Christian Grey and Mrs. Rape isn’t a fine example of “fuckedupness,” but it’s another one of those moments that makes me wonder how Ana prioritizes which things trigger the “flight” instinct. It’s also worth noting that even if she’s a fucking idiot, that instinct does kick in a few times, which is probably why the ladies think Christian Grey is so hawt. Nothing says Boyfriend Material like guys who make their girlfriends want to run away.

Lor: Grey and Ana walk for a while before she starts asking him questions. He admits to bringing his pasts subs to that very salon, including the Ghost of Submissives Past . Also, Mrs. Rape has met all of his past submissives.

“”Can you see how fucked-up this is?” I glare up at him, my voice low.”

When these characters make comments like these, it really takes so much effort not to lose it.

“I want to get my hair cut, preferably where you haven’t fucked either the staff or the clientele.”

LOL.

Ana makes to leave and Grey wants to know if she’s running away. She’s all, NO ASSHOLE. I JUST WANT TO CUT MY HAIR. Grey offers to have a hairdresser come to his place or her apartment. I find it hi-larious that she asks him to point out a salon where he hasn’t had sex with anyone and Grey’s answer is, “Uh… I can bring someone to you?”

Because Christian Grey has fucked the world, everyone. He’s fucked us all.

Sweeney: A+

Lor: Ana comments that Mrs. Rape is very pretty and Grey agrees that she is. She’s no longer married, so Ana wants to know why Grey isn’t with her. “Because that’s over between us,” he non-answers. Thankfully, his phone rings so that no actual conversation has to happen between these two.

Sweeney: Fair point, but his being on the phone gives Ana more time to internal monologue, which is just as bad. I was going to say worse, but I don’t even know how to rank all the awful here. This internal monologue describes Grey as, “a man who has no concept of privacy under United States law.” I’m not even going to comment on the awkward writing here, and just go straight to the fact that none of these characters know about United States anything, beyond what E. L. James was able to pull up on Google Maps.

Lor: EL James transcribes the one sided part of Grey’s phone conversation and it’s like when you are in a car with one other person and they pick up a call. You have to sit there and listen to something that doesn’t make any sense and you couldn’t care less about.

Sweeney: …and then the cell phone radiation gives him a brain tumor AND HE DIES! THE END! No?

Lor: Sorry. 🙁

After he hangs up, he explains to Ana that he was speaking to his security adviser. He’s just learned that the Ghost of Submissives Past ran away from her husband three months ago with a guy who was killed in a car wreck four weeks ago.

Ana’s thinks that’s crazy, but doesn’t let Grey forget they were in the middle of a conversation about Mrs. Rape. Grey says they can finish that conversation at his place. Ana yells at him that she doesn’t want to go to his place SHE WANTS HER DAMN HAIR CUT. She must have some wicked split ends.

Grey’s response is to pick up his phone and call the salon, telling them to send over the hairdresser to Grey’s place. Ana is at a loss, but Grey somehow ties this hair cut thing into the GSP being at large and how Ana needs to stay with him at all times, so he can “keep [her] safe.” Never mind that GSP knows where Grey lives and went there to get all wrist-slitty about life.

Ana tries to argue but Grey knows how to win an argument:

“You are coming back to my apartment if I have to drag you there by your hair.”

OH WAIT. I HAVE USED THAT GIF TOO QUICKLY.

Sweeney: I’m commenting as I read. I clicked over to share this:

But now I’m sad that it’s going to get worse when I go back to the book. How does that keep happening?

Lor: Probably because we keep reading.

Ana says Grey is overreacting and she refuses to go with him.

“”You can walk or I can carry you. I don’t mind either way, Anastasia.”
“You wouldn’t dare.” I scowl at him. Surely he wouldn’t make a scene on Second Avenue?
He half smiles at me, but the smile doesn’t reach his eyes.
“Oh, baby, we both know that if you throw down the gauntlet I’ll be only too happy to pick it up.”
We glare at each other -and abruptly he sweeps down, clasps me round my thighs, and lifts me. Before I know it, I am over his shoulder.”

THROW DOWN THE GAUNTLET? A refusal is NOT a challenge, Grey. YOU CANNOT THROW HER OVER YOUR SHOULDER.

Sweeney: LOR, WHAT IS THIS BOOK? WHY IS THIS HAPPENING? IS THIS GOING TO BE FOREVER?

 

Lor:

Grey carries a screaming Ana, even swats her ass, until she gets embarrassed and says she’ll walk. He puts her down and she takes off toward her apartment. He, of course, follows. Ana’s pissed and she says she doesn’t even know why. Before I can provide her with one of my handy lists, she makes one of her own. On the list she includes him taking her to the salon, both because it is owned by Mrs. Rape and because he’d brought other submissives there, knowing her bank account number, and buying the company she works for.

We interrupt all these super valid points by Ana realizing that something must’ve happened with GSP to make Grey this worried and links it back to his very serious phone call from ealier. Apparently GSP’s obtained a concealed weapons permit. Uh… whut?

I’m not even going to speak to the possibility of getting a concealed weapons permit in like a day without a background check. Also, I’m ignoring that having a CONCEALED weapons permit doesn’t mean what EL James thinks it means. Ana’s all, “oh nos now she can buy a gun!” and um, she could’ve bought a gun anyways. Now she can legally conceal it on her person, which is funny because you can just imagine this mentally unstable woman going, “I want to kill someone. BETTER GETS ME A PERMIT.”

Sweeney: AND THEN THEY DIE! LOR, MAYBE DREAMS REALLY DO COME TRUE!

Also, this was my #genuinelol moment of the chapter. I usually get at least one, and GSP’s getting a concealed weapon license was that  moment. I’m going to bask in the moment for a second. I enjoy these fleeting moments where E. L. James being a crazypants terrible writer makes me giggle instead of rage the fuck out.

Lor: Ana is so worried for Grey’s safety that she hugs him, instead of, I don’t know, wishing that GSP would use that concealed weapon to bust a cap in his ass for carrying her around in public against her will.

He kisses her hair and “that’s it. All my fury is gone, but not forgotten. Dissipated under the threat of some harm coming to Christian. The thought is unbearable.”

Reading this book is unbearable.

Sweeney: There is not enough bold, blinking, neon text in the world to emphasize how true that statement is.

Lor: We cut to Ana in her apartment packing up her things so she can stay over Grey’s. In the car, Ana asks if all Grey’s submissives were brunettes and he says yes. This is so creepy to me. Grey jokes that the woman who raped him put him off blondes for life.

Sweeney: LOL RAPE JOKES! Also: no stalker boyfriends for me! Yaaay! Sorry, Lor.

Lor: I’m brown though, and he likes them pale. #safe

At Ana’s prodding, Grey explains that he’s a silent partner in the salon business. He invested in her business because he owed it to her. When Grey dropped out of Harvard, she lent him a hundred grand to start his business. Ana figures Mrs. Rape is rich, but it turns out she was a bored trophy wife. She lent Grey her husband’s money and we’re supposed to be okay with that because apparently her husband was controlling. GREY CALLS SOMEONE ELSE CONTROLLING AND THEN GRINS AT THAT. Because this book wants to kill me.

Sweeney: Oh. That was a plot twist I hadn’t considered in my “and then she dies” enthusiasm. I do not approve.

Lor: Kay. I’ll hold off on dying.

At Grey’s place, he goes off to make some calls and Ana goes up to her room. She checks out some of the clothes he bought her and one of the evening dresses costs almost $3000. This overwhelms Ana.

“Why, oh why have I fallen for someone who is plain crazy- beautiful, sexy as fuck, richer than Croesus, and crazy with a capital K?”

I feel like soon this book is just going to rob me of all words. One day you may log on and find that the recaps have devolved to nothing more than excerpts and reaction gifs.

Sweeney: Seriously. This should have been a tumblr project.

Lor: Ana briefly calls her mom, says her boyfriend is nuts, and her mom earns negative Sandy Cohen Eyebrows for giving no proper follow up. The only reason it is significant at all is because Ana’s mom mentions problems with her husband Bob and Ana thinks, “Oh, someone else has problems. I’m not the only one.” OMG, really?! Other people have problems?? Mind blown.

Sweeney: It’s an odd moment for me to not find that Ana and/or Grey is the most reprehensible person in a scenario, but yeah, mom, WTF. “My boyfriend is crazy!” “LOL, MEN!” That is almost exactly the conversation. YOU ARE EYEBROW-LESS FOREVER.

Lor: The conversation ends when Grey shows up like a second later.

Grey sits and Ana asks him why he wants her, why not get some other pale, brunette submissive and make his life easier. Because, he says, she gives him hope. Oh, and also, having someone obey your every command gets “old quickly.” He’d much rather have someone say no, and make them do it anyway, because that is super exciting fun times.

Sweeney: It’s no fun without the force! People who willingly do what I say are boring! I’m way more into beating them and breaking their spirits.

Lor: He asks Ana not to run from him, to have faith and a little patience and she’s all, “oooooookay!” And that’s that, which is good, Grey says, because the hair dresser has arrived.

Post-haircut, Grey asks again if Ana is still mad, and she is. He offers sex and for the thousandth time in the first five chapters of this book makes a, “I’m hungry but not for food,” comment. It’s the new Icarus. Grey asks for the lists of reasons Ana is mad and she repeats them, adding at the end that Mrs. Rape can touch him and she can’t. He answers that she knows where. Plus, Ana’s touch means more. That’s all Ana needs to hear to swoon and melt because I can’t touch my boyfriend BECAUSE IT MEANS A LOT.

Sweeney: This makes no sense. At all. Ana, your illogical thinking is going to make my brain explode.

AND THEN SHE DIES. Damn it, that’s not what I wanted either.

Lor: Grey next brings up the whole, “knowing her bank account number” thing and says it was just part of the background check he runs on all his submissives. In fact, he brings out a file he kept on Ana with a copy of her birth certificate and social security number. He admits that when he went to Claytons to buy all the things a murderapist might need, it wasn’t a coincidence. I called that! I realize this isn’t that big of an accomplishment.

Sweeney:

Lor: Grey claims to not misuse the information one second later, which seems funny seeing as he’s stalked her to no less than three locations and deposited money in her account she didn’t want, etc, etc. Grey says he makes one hundred thousand dollars an hour (S: Due to the matter-of-fact way that he says this, it was my second #genuinelol moment. I got two in one chapter!) and the little things he buys her don’t cost him much in the grand scheme of things. I believe that entirely because Grey wouldn’t really be into giving things that cost him. And really, my rich boyfriend buys me stuff should be the very least of Ana’s worries.

After Ana realizes that Grey has no empathy and cannot begin to place himself in her shoes, she suggests they eat and offers to cook.

She decides to make an omelet and that she needs music. She goes through Grey’s iPod and finds Crazy in Love by Beyonce. As she cooks, she wonders if all men have no empathy and then remembers her best friend, Katherine Kavanaugh who will be home by the end of the week. She wonders if Katherine and Elliot are still “in lust,” because she is a bitch. Kate and Elliot are only allowed to be in lust, but she’s allowed to be in love with Grey.

Christian shows up and gives Ana a hug, but she shrugs him off. She’s still “mad” and jokes she will be until after she’s eaten. Grey admits that Crazy in Love was put on his iPod by GSP and Ana asks if he didn’t see all the deep! secret! messages. Grey says he wasn’t exactly thinking with his 13 year old hormones. Just kidding! He doesn’t say that. He picks a new song: I put a Spell on You. Ana tries to discover the deep! secret! messages! of his song choice, because they couldn’t possibly communicate with each other like two adults standing in the same room.

Sweeney: We’ve seen the way E. L. James writes conversations. It’s clear that nothing good would come of that.

Lor: And yet, this book goes on, and no one is dead yet.

Ana says that Grey starts stalking her like a predator. Seriously, she says that. But I guess this means that he’s gone from agitated to horny. We’re told he’s wearing “just” a white shirt and jeans, so he’s practically naked again. Ana whisper-asks him not to try and have sexy times with her right now, so he totally disregards that requests and instead just woos her by saying he loves and hates to argue with her. Ana is won over and says that fine, yes, they can have sexy times. Thankfully for my sanity, they are interrupted by Taylor.

Sweeney: Not that this is a high honor, but Taylor is so clearly the best character in these books. That’s partially because in my headcanon (newfavoriteterm) he is secretly planning to murder everyone. I think you actually suggested this theory once, right?

Lor: Honestly not sure if I did. If I did? I AM AWESOME. ‘CAUSE THEN EVERYONE IS DEAD.

While Grey leaves to talk to Taylor, Ana finishes cooking. Grey returns but gives no information on what the interruption was about. They eat in silence for a bit before they start chit catting about Grey’s childhood. When Ana says that Mama Grey must be proud of him, he goes steely and Ana calls him schizophrenic and reminds herself to Google the symptoms later.

We cut to sometime later, Ana is actually Googling Multiple Personality Disorder. Well, this is how she says it:

“I set about transferring Christian’s playlist from my iPad to the Mac, then fire up Google to surf the net.“

Gotta fire up that Google!!! **doubleclicks** PHEW.

Grey walks in and she lets him see the page and he finds it totally amusing that his SO thinks he has a psychological disorder. Ana says she’s reached the conclusion that he needs intense therapy and she’s not wrong. He hands her a tube of lipstick.

I was warned by a commenter a couple of posts ago that the Crayola Body Mapping was a thing that would actually happen but little did I know it would be so soon, it would be my chapter and that it would be with “harlot red” lipstick Grey happened to have lying around.

Sweeney: Once we knew it was coming, it was probably better to get it out of the way quickly.

Lor: She draws the boundaries and from what I can tell, it appears to be his chest and most of his back, where he has the small, white burn scars. He probably just could’ve said, “don’t touch my chest or my back.” Ana says she can live with those boundaries and wants to “launch” herself at him. He’s all for the sexy times and she “squeals with childish delight.” Then her “paedo sense” starts pinging so loudly in her head that her brain explodes.

Sweeney: AND THEN SHE DIES!

Lor: JUST KIDDING.

Sweeney:

Lor: We end the chapter with them kissing instead which is a lot less cool.

In order to liven up the mood, and because Sweeney and I are running out of ways to convey the creepiness of Christian Grey (it’s just THAT much creepy) we’re opening up a Stalker Boyfriend Meme Contest! Grab the blank stalker boyfriend below and give us your best captions.

Sweeney: We are super excited for your meme submissions as they will inevitably be just as hilarious as your comments. (HINT. WINK.) Email your awesome completed versions to: team (at) snarksquad (dot) com

(Broken down to deflect the spambots who will inevitably send us lots of shit anyway, but if I can stop even one spambot, then it shall be worth it. Or something like that.)

Lor: If some of you guys actually do this (PLEASE) then we’ll share the submissions and pick a favorite! The favorite will get a sweet treat from the Snark Ladies. I mean, if whoever the winner is feels okay giving me their address. Take comfort in the fact that I am no stalker boyfriend, and do not have your address already.

Murmur Count – 12
Whisper Count – 10

 

Favorite comment last post: ‘Monopoly: 50 Shades of Grey’ version will totally be a thing. It will have chance cards like “Uh oh, you didn’t eat your asparagus. Go to the red room of domestic assault, Go directly there and do not pass go.” Instead of the railroads it would be the abducticopters. Community chest cards like “your car just broke down but luckily stalker boyfriend already bought you a new one!” And every square you land on you can’t buy because CHRISTIAN GREY ALREADY OWNS THE WHOLE BOARD! And in the end everyone loses, because that’s what happens when you play with Christian Grey. – Trina Ruck

 

Next time on Fifty Shades Darker: Is anyone dead yet? Find out in FSD – Chapter 6.