Grey Chapter 06 – Longest. Chapter. Ever.

Previously: Grey illegally tracked Ana down and kidnapped her, but it was for her own good.
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Alex: My last recap was mostly just a bunch of stuff from FSoG slightly rewritten from Grey’s PoV. It seems that I’ve got pretty much the same deal this time, only A MILLION TIMES WORSE, because now I have the dubious honour of recapping Grey’s first sex scene.

Luckily, though, I have a while to prepare myself for that, because this is also the LONGEST CHAPTER OF ALL TIME. It just keeps going and going. I’ll be surprised if anyone is even still reading by the time we get to the sex part.

Jessica: Your perseverance in not only reading, but writing, is impressive. Just reading this took colossal effort.

Marines: I’m reading as I follow along with your recap, because I’m smart and would like to preserve as much of my mental health as possible while participating in this project. Self love is the first love, y’all.

Alex: So. It’s 1:45am and Grey’s been reading his emails for two hours, while an unconscious Ana sleeps next door. He finally finishes with his emails and joins her in the bed, reassuring himself that he won’t have to worry about her touching him because “she’s comatose“. Yes, Grey, you’re the one who should be worrying about unwanted touching in this scenario.

Mari: Wow, it’s early but really: EL SUCKS for making this whole thing about how HE feels SAFE because she’s passed out in his bed. It’s misdirection at it’s finest, making her being PASSED OUT IN HIS BED is a good thing. I’ll probably take this back almost immediately, but this is the worst.

Alex: Pace yourself, Mari. We have a lot of ‘worst’ to cover in this colossal chapter.

He watches her sleep for a while and gets a little turned on. Gross. (J: Seconding that gross.) (M: Okay, this is the worst.)

Grey wakes up at 7:43am (gotta love those pointless details!) and gets another boner. He gets out of bed and checks his emails. Again. He has a couple from Ros and Andrea, so I guess those poor women must have been up crazy early. He decides to go for a run, leaving Ana some orange juice and painkillers for when she wakes up. This makes me laugh because I’ve just remembered how many times orange juice was mentioned in FSoG. Before leaving for his run, Grey pauses to perve over Ana’s unconscious body some more, then decides to “get out of here before I do something I’ll regret“.

A while later, he arrives back from his run. Well, I say ‘a while later’, but E. L. James quite specifically tells us that it’s now 9am. (J: Thank god, I was wondering, and not knowing would have changed my entire reading experience.) Taylor has dropped off a bag full of new clothes for Ana, and whatever Grey’s paying this guy it’s most definitely not enough.

Jessica: Also, how the hell did he find clothes between what I assume was at least around midnight last night, and before 9 a.m. this morning? All these pointless details ELJ includes are starting to make her characters’ timelines obviously unrealistic.

Alex: Because Taylor is a god among men, obviously. #TeamTaylor

Grey orders a huge breakfast from room service and is told that it will take half an hour. That means it’ll arrive at 9:30am. It’s really important to make sure the readers of your erotic novel know the exact time at any given moment in the story.

Grey goes to wake Ana, but finds her already sitting up in the bed. He thinks this to himself: “Keep it casual, Grey. You don’t want to be charged with kidnapping“. That almost makes it sound like he’s acknowledging how supremely fucked up it was to bring an unconscious woman back to his hotel room. But nothing Christian Grey does is ever wrong, so I guess I must be misinterpreting somehow.

Mari: You missed that it’s randomly italicized in a bunch of his other thoughts so following our own head canon, it’s Dick de Grey saying it. Grey doesn’t really care about being charged with kidnapping but his penis is like, “woah buddy! Might want to be casual here because finding girls who look like your mom will be impossible in prison.”

Alex: I can’t believe I already forgot about the head canon which I invented. Thanks for spotting that!

Ana is really embarrassed about all the drinking. She’s also a teeny bit worried about how she ended up here in this strange hotel room, in her underwear, with a guy she barely knows. Really only a teeny bit worried, though. Not even, like, 1% as angry or terrified as you or I would probably be in this situation. (J: Well, see, he’s super hot.) She awkwardly whisper-asks if they had sex (although of course she doesn’t actually say the word ‘sex’) and Grey is totally offended by the question, even though an hour and seventeen minutes ago he pretty much told us he was thinking about raping her.

This leads him to wonder whether she’s ever been raped while unconscious before. By José, perhaps. But then he reassures himself that she probably hasn’t, because she said she’d never been drunk before. And then… THEN… he thinks to himself:

“Thank God she hasn’t made a habit of this.“

Because a woman who gets drunk on a regular basis might ‘make a habit’ of getting raped. So thank God she’s not one of those women. Fuck you, Christian Grey. And fuck you, E. L. James. There. I said it.

Immediately after he thinks this, as if to prove my point, Ana says “I’m so sorry” and he tells us that her voice is “full of shame“. That’s right, Ana. You just sit there and think about what you did.

Mari: Meanwhile, the guy who carried you out and undressed you and oogled you while you were unconscious gets to sit there all judge-y and fondling his hero complex.

Alex: He then decides to “go easy on her“, rather than continuing to make her feel shitty about getting drunk and almost being assaulted and then waking up here in her underwear.

Ana gets a little pissy about the illegal cellphone tracking, but again, only a little. Grey’s internal monologue very slightly acknowledges that illegally tracking her cellphone was maybe a bit shady, but he loses his temper anyway and tells her that if he hadn’t illegally tracked her down then she’d probably have been raped by José.

Or how about option C, where she goes out and has a nice time with her friends and then goes home without being raped and/or kidnapped by anyone? Why is that not one of the choices? GAH. You know, I don’t think I have the energy to keep pointing out how awful all of this is, so let’s just move on. (M: There’s still sexy times to get to; I’m sorry.) (A: I don’t think ‘sexy’ is the right word.)

Ana’s response to this is to start giggling. Of course it is. (M: “Ha ha ha! Your stalking and kidnapping is so funny. Just like the olden days because you are based on a sparking vampire!”) They swiftly change the subject and he now gives her a hard time about not eating before going out drinking, although in his head he’s mostly blaming Kate for everything. He imagines sticking ginger in Ana’s anus to punish her. No, really, that’s what it says:

“An image of her shackled to my bench, peeled gingerroot inserted in her ass so she can’t clench her buttocks, comes to mind, followed by judicious use of a belt or strap.”

Excuse me? Peeled gingerroot?? I’m curious about whether this is actually A Thing, but there are some things that should remain unGoogled.

Jessica: Yeaaaahh, I’m gonna pass on that as well.

Mari: I’m at work.

Alex: Grey goes for a shower. He doesn’t jerk off (he finds it necessary to tell us that he’s not jerking off) but he does think some more about making Ana his submissive. (M: He also finds it necessary to tell us that his “old habits,” namely the ones he picked up when he was fifteen and being statutory raped by a married woman “die hard.” No jerking off in the shower, or else Mrs. Rape will know.) He steps back into the bedroom to find Ana looking for her jeans. He didn’t even bother to tell her where her clothes were before he went for his shower? What a dick. He makes her feel guilty about throwing up again, and he thinks some more about how much he hates jeans.

Ana grabs the bag of new clothes and rushes into the bathroom. Grey’s disappointed that she was so eager to get in there instead of staying out here in her underwear, getting teased about puking. (M: “Puke jokes were my A game Maybe she doesn’t want me, wah.”) While she’s showering, Grey checks his email again. I think I’m going to take a drink every time Grey checks his email from now on. (M: Happy dying!) Breakfast arrives and the two women delivering it say perfectly normal things about setting up and clearing away the table, but this is Christian Grey, so all he hears is ‘we totally want your penis’.

Grey gets a text from Elliot, asking if Ana’s OK. Grey replies with a winky-face, like a total douchebag, and then thinks some more about his brother’s dick. I can’t be the only one finding all the dick talk between Grey and Elliot a little weird.

Mari: The question is rarely ever, “does anyone else find this weird?” but rather about whether other weird things have distracted you from this weird thing. For instance, I didn’t notice this brother-penis thing because Grey was moaning about how at least Kate was checking up on Ana, even though she is a terrible friend. Even while Kate is doing a good friend thing, she is still a terrible friend. Okay, Grey.

Alex: #LeaveKateAlone.

Ana comes out of the bathroom and he tells her to sit down for breakfast. She accuses him of being “very profligate” (#ThingsNoOneWouldSay)(J: A+ hashtaggery), but she’s impressed that he ordered her favourite tea. It’s Twinings Fucking English Breakfast Tea, Ana. It’s really not that special.

Grey scolds her for having wet hair because he’s a massive hypocrite who apparently still believes that wet hair makes you sick. She makes a half-hearted offer to pay him back for the clothes, but he refuses while thinking smug thoughts about how rich he is. She asks about the books and he explains that they were “an apology and a warning“, but then admits that he can’t stay away from her. He decides he needs to show her the playroom, so he invites her over to his place, suggesting that they can either do it tonight or next week. If only she had chosen ‘next week’, then the rest of this chapter would have happened on a different day and maybe I wouldn’t have had to recap it. But alas.

Jessica: I would say that we were lucky in not getting this one but, it’s only chapter 6. Chapter 6, people!

Alex: There are no winners here.

Grey phones Taylor to make arrangements for the helicopter and Ana actually scolds him a little for being rude to his staff, which might be the one and only time Ana and I agree about something. Grey is really not happy about her questioning the way he treats his employees, so he shouts at her a bit about finishing her breakfast and then orders her to go dry her hair. She’s clearly impressed that he owns a helicopter, which causes him to think “sometimes it’s just fucking great to be me“. Oh, go fuck yourself.

Ana heads back into the bedroom to do as she’s told, pausing to clarify that he did, in fact, sleep in the bed with her last night. She also blushes and stutters over the word ‘sex’ like an idiot.

Grey drinks some orange juice and… checks his email!

Then he gets a call from Ros about whatever they’re trying to do in Darfur. He pretends to listen but instead thinks about braiding Ana’s hair, because ain’t nobody got time to think about world hunger when there’s pretty hair to braid.

Jessica: Sorry, I can’t not:

Alex: Ana and Christian step into the elevator together. She bites her lip and makes sexy eyes at him, which gives him an insta-boner. We get the famous “fuck the paperwork” line, and they kiss for the first time. Grey thinks some pretty hilarious things during this kiss, including that Ana tastes like “an orchard of mellow fruitfulness“. What up, Keats? Didn’t expect to see you here. Dick de Grey, meanwhile, thinks “Good Lord”. I’m now imagining Grey’s penis wearing a little monocle and a top hat.

They make out for a while and then Grey stops to comment that Ana has brushed her teeth. I think I hear Mari retching over there. (J: Firmly on Team We Don’t Share Our Toothbrushes.) (M: Reminder that it’s also a real gross thing to comment on after a kiss. “You don’t taste like vomit and orange juice like expected.” WORST WORST WORST WORST.) They head out to the car and make boring small talk about music as Grey drives her home. During the drive he gets three calls on his hands-free. The first two are from Welch and Andrea, both of whom are calling purely to say that they’ve emailed things to him. Given how often Grey checks his email, this seems pretty unnecessary. The third call is from Elliot, who says a bunch of douchey bro stuff and makes Grey jealous by talking to Ana for half a second.

Mari: My favorite part of the whole car ride happens when Grey thinks, “for all her maladroitness, she has a beautiful neckline…” Uh, lol, what? Did I miss something about how clumsiness and ugly necklines are linked? Next time I trip, should I say, “don’t mind me! I have a terrible neckline”?

Alex: Well now I’m just worried that I might have an ugly neckline. What does a beautiful neckline even look like? I didn’t even know this was something I had to be concerned about.

Anyway, after all these fascinating phonecalls, Ana asks Grey to please stop calling her ‘Anastasia’. Grey refuses, because Ana is a gross ugly poor-person name. His internal monologue tells us that he knows he’s pissing her off by ignoring her wishes, but he has zero fucks to give.

When they arrive at Ana(stasia)’s apartment, Grey is surprised to see that Elliot isn’t desperate to make a quick getaway. ‘Kavanagh’ jumps up and hugs Ana. All I can think of is this:

While I’m thinking about 90s British pop stars, Grey wonders “What did she think I was going to do to the girl?” immediately followed (in italics) by “I know what I’d like to do to her…”. I think this is pretty solid evidence for both the talking-penis and the inner-murderer theories, so take your pick. (M: Also, way to prove Kate’s worries right while also being totes shocked that she has them.) He also thinks a bit more about what a shitty friend Kate is, but he does grudgingly agree to stop calling her ‘Miss Kavanagh’. I guess that means he respects her wishes ever so slightly more than Ana’s.

Jessica: Meanwhile, let’s take the time to cheer Kate on for her ‘cool and condescending’ tone while talking to Grey, as well as the ‘speculative look through narrowed eyes’ she gives Grey. I’m pretty sure this lady has his number. It’s like she can sense the inner murder penis.

Alex: Kate and Elliot share a goodbye kiss while Ana and Christian look on disapprovingly. Grey, meanwhile, decides that he won’t kiss Ana again until he has her written consent. Gosh, it’s so difficult to decide which of these two pairings I’d rather be a part of.

As Grey drives back to the hotel, Elliot jokes around and calls him an “uptight son of a bitch”. But this gives Grey a case of the megasadz. You see, he thinks of his crackwhore mother as a bitch, so that makes him an actual son of a bitch. He gets jealous of his brother for being the son of a non-bitch, so he turns the music up to stop Elliot from napping. What a  jerk.

You might think that this would be a good place to end the chapter, but oh no. We’re not even half way through. Stay strong, friends.

Jessica:

Alex: Back at home, Grey peruses José’s background check and finds something about possession of marijuana. Grey doesn’t really care about that, as long as José doesn’t smoke it around Ana. The background check also confirms that José isn’t a convicted rapist, and you can tell that Grey’s a little disappointed by this. It doesn’t really matter, though, because he’s still congratulating himself for rescuing Ana. He just figures that last night “would have been a first“, if he hadn’t intervened.

Pause. I didn’t want to get into this, but now I feel the need to speak up about this whole ‘José is a sex offender’ thing. Yes, trying to kiss Ana when she was drunk and clearly didn’t want to be kissed was 100% wrong. He should feel deeply ashamed of himself. However, kidnapping an unconscious women, taking off her clothes, then spending the whole night in bed with her without her knowledge is also really fucking wrong. Oh, what’s that? You didn’t try to kiss her, so that makes it OK? Nope, it really doesn’t. Plus, actually, Grey did kiss Ana while she was unconscious, albeit on the forehead rather than on the lips.

I don’t want to get into a debate about which man’s actions were worse, because it shouldn’t matter. They were both wrong. However, personally, I’m pretty sure that waking up in a near-stranger’s bed in my underwear, then learning that he’d spent the whole night in bed with my unconscious half-naked body, would be a far more upsetting experience than a drunk friend attempting to kiss me. But E. L. James seems to feel the need to continually remind us that Grey rescued Ana from a dangerous sexual predator, and it is doing my fucking head in.

Jessica: On top of that, with the constant reminder that it was her fault because she got drunk. WORST.

Mari: Additional ick factor? José is one of the only (if not the only) minority characters in this entire book. The fact that he’s also been busted for possession and is pretty-much-a-sex-offender thanks to EL and in the eyes of this rich, white, totally messed up protagonist is absolute cow dung and I hate this book.

Alex: A very good point, especially when you consider the black/Hispanic confusion from a few chapters ago. Ick is right.

Anyway. Grey and Elliot now go on a pointless hike. Elliot chats a lot and Grey pretends to listen, but he’s actually thinking about Ana and enjoying the resulting cock-twitches. This short and completely unnecessary scene concludes with these thoughts from Grey:

“I’ll fuck her in time.
I’ll fuck her bound and with her smart mouth gagged.”

Doing a reeeally good job making him seem less creepy there, Erika.

Mari: Christian Grey: when consent ain’t no thang, all you need is time, rope, and a gag!

Alex: Later that evening, Grey picks Ana up from work and they drive to the helipad. Getting to the helicopter involves using an elevator and Grey makes “a mental note to fuck her in an elevator one day“. Man, I’ve been doing mental notes all wrong. I only ever use mine for stuff like ‘buy toilet paper’.

They get into the helicopter and there’s a fuckload of pointless technical detail as Grey prepares for takeoff, because what everyone really wants from an erotic novel is a bunch of copy-and-paste from a helicopter manual. Ana asks how he knows which direction to fly in.

“Here.” I point to the panel. I don’t want to bore her talking about instrument flight rules, but the fact is it’s all the equipment in front of me that guides us to our destination: the attitude indicator, the altimeter, the VSI, and of course the GPS.

Well, it was nice that you decided not to bore Ana with all that, Grey. Couldn’t you have extended the same courtesy to the rest of us, though? (J: Preach!)

They fly for a while and at some point Ana says she’s “awed“, which sends Grey into a random flashback about reading to his mother when he was seven. I have absolutely no idea what that had to do with anything. (M: Random baby!Grey flashbacks inserted to distract you from douche!Grey?) Eventually they land on the roof of Grey’s building. They go into his apartment as he thinks some more about how much he hates all her clothes.

At the apartment, Grey opens a bottle of wine and worries about how quiet Ana’s being. Then we get probably my favourite bit of dialogue from FSoG. I’m so happy to see it repeated again here.

‘It’s a very big place you have here’, she says, her voice timid.
‘Big?’
‘Big.’
‘It’s big.’

J: I’d say this is an ad, but they’re not repeating any brand names.

Alex: They sit down and talk about the books he sent her, and I’m sure some of our readers have a lot to say about Ana wanting a man just like Alec D’Urbervilles. Ana’s lip-biting gives Grey a boner again, so he does what any horny man would do: he goes into his study and staples some papers together. He’s terrified that Ana won’t want to sign his NDA, but she’s fine with it and doesn’t even bother to read it first. Even Grey thinks that this is really fucking stupid of her.

Mari: Her totally smart answer is basically that she hates people and wouldn’t talk to them about anything anyway. NDAs are nothing to Anastasia Steele.

Alex: Grey prepares to “begin [his] pitch“. Oh my. So sexy. But then Ana goes and kills the mood by asking if they’re going to “make love” tonight. Grey decides it’s time to show her the Red Room of Domestic Violence.

He opens the door to the playroom and watches nervously as Ana looks around. Eventually she asks if he “[does] this to people”, or if they do it to him. He gets annoyed at her use of the word “people” and feels the need to correct it to “women”. Because it doesn’t really matter what she thinks of him, just as long as she doesn’t think that he ever has sex with men.

Grey gives a brief explanation of how the whole Dom/sub thing works. Ana asks if he’ll “get your kicks by exerting your will over me“. In reply, he says that it’s all about gaining her trust and respect and stuff, but what he actually thinks is “Spot on, Miss Steele”. Just to make it abundantly clear that this really has fuck all to do with trust and respect.

Mari: He does this a couple of times, where Ana says something dead on about him and he twists and manipulates it so that it becomes something else. He’s clearly not shooting straight here and just saying things as pleasantly as possible to blindside Ana into being in this relationship.

Alex: They leave the Red Room and he shows Ana the submissive’s bedroom, which is a bit too much for her to take in at this point, so he suggests that they go eat. When Ana says that she isn’t hungry, he thinks “her eating habits will be one of the first issues I’ll work on if she agrees to be mine…that and her fidgeting“. Because there’s nothing sexier than a man plotting to change everything about you.

Mari: Plotting to change everything about you… with violence.

Jessica: The constant talk of “training” made me see rage spots.

Alex: He decides against taking her out to dinner, so they make do with cheese and wine. She asks him various questions about being a Dom, including whether he’s ever badly hurt anyone. He says no, but then he thinks about someone called Dawn who was “fine, if a little shaken by the experience“. Well, that’s just terrifying. What on earth happened to poor Dawn? Actually, no, I don’t want to know. Ana also asks if he’ll ever hurt her, and he replies that she’ll be punished painfully when it’s required. In his head, he adds “for example, when you get drunk and put yourself at risk“.

Mari: I remember in the FSoG recap, when Grey was all, “if you were mine, you wouldn’t be able to sit for a week,” I was all, “it kind of sounds like he’s threatening to beat her for almost getting raped…?” I WAS RIGHT. That’s exactly what it sounded like because that’s what he was thinking.

Alex: He decides it’s time to show her the contract. They argue a bit over some of the details but I’m not really paying attention because my eyes just skipped down the page to Grey thinking “it’s shit-or-bust time”. It’s here again, you guys! Shit-or-bust! This is my favourite part of this whole chapter. (M: Shit-or-bust is the shit-stop best.)

Anyway, they eventually get onto the subject of sex and Ana admits that she’s never done it before. This is such an astonishing revelation that “the earth stops spinning” for Grey. He’s is disgusted and embarrassed that he showed his playroom to a virgin. “Anger lances through me. What can I do with a virgin? I glare at her as fury surges through my body“. Yep, that’s a totally normal reaction to this information.

Jessica: And then when she asks him why he’s so angry at her, he tells her that he’s not, despite the fact that two pages ago “anger lances through” him, and then he asks himself why she thinks he’s angry. Um, maybe because your rage clearly came through your eyes and/or face?? This guy is insane. Also terrible.

Mari: I mean, he growls, “why the fuck didn’t you tell me?” So he’s definitely angry, insane, terrible and maybe also a dog of some sort…?

Alex: Grey interrogates Ana about how she could possibly have reached the ANCIENT age of 21 without ever having had sex. He reassures himself that it can’t be because she’s religious because the background check would have caught that.

After being a total prick about this whole thing for a few more pages, Grey eventually calms down and decides that he’ll “break her in“. Lovely. He leads her to the bedroom to “rectify the situation“, giving her a charming speech about how this is all “a means to an end” for him. Be still, my beating heart. (J: Much swoon. Wow. So romance.)

They kiss and then head into the bedroom and OH GOD. Here we go.

Grey starts things off by grabbing some condoms, thinking to himself “at least I don’t have to worry about every dick she’s slept with“. He’s so charming. (M: Don’t worry, tremendodouche. Your own rotten penis is more worry than she could ever amass elsewhere.) He briefly wonders about whether this is the right way for someone to lose their virginity, but he’s horny so he decides that he doesn’t give a shit.

He takes off her shirt and compliments her on her beautiful, flawless skin. However, in his head he thinks that it’s “unsettling” that she doesn’t have any marks on her, and that he’d like to see her covered in welts from a riding crop. (M: I want to cry.)

They kiss for a while and then he pushes her down onto the bed. He licks her stomach and tells us that she tastes like “an orchard in springtime“. Seriously, dude, enough with the orchard thing. (J: What the hell does an orchard even taste like?) (M: Leaves, dirt, a hint of apple and great abuse victim, I guess.) He removes her jeans and sticks his nose in her crotch for a good sniff. Sadly there’s no word on whether she smells like an orchard down there, too. He tells her to touch herself, but she doesn’t know how. In fact, she doesn’t even know what he means. He explains that he wants her to make herself come, and she’s shocked at the suggestion. It turns out that Ana has never actually masturbated before, let alone had an orgasm. Keep that in mind as we see how the rest of this scene plays out.

Grey’s actually pretty stoked at the idea of giving Ana her first ever orgasm, and thinks to himself “I’m going to make you come like a freight train, baby“.

Mari: CHOO CHOO.

Alex: He spreads her legs and kisses her thighs, getting annoyed at her for not keeping still as she gets turned on. Of course. He can’t even let her just enjoy herself, can he? I hate this guy so much. He pulls down her bra and marvels at how hard her nipples are already. During the course of this encounter he actually tells us that her nipples extend at least three more times after this, so I guess they must end up being about a foot long by the time they’re done.

Grey sucks on a nipple and Ana quickly has her first ever orgasm. That’s right. Despite never having had an orgasm in her entire life, Ana comes after a few seconds of nipple sucking. Grey is extremely pleased with himself even though he did basically nothing to make this happen. (M: Chugga chugga, CHOO CHOO.)

He removes his underwear and puts on a condom, thinking about how Ana’s probably never even seen an erect penis. “Don’t worry,” he reassures her, “you expand, too“. Leave it to E.L. James to find the absolute least sexy way of phrasing that. (M: All said in the unsexy forever ‘mutter’.) He assumes the position and then he just shoves it right in there. She’s so tight that his brain can’t even think ‘fuck!’ and he has to spell it out in individually letters instead, like this:

F. U. C. K.

Mari: Do you think Erika realizes that this means Grey just went, “eff you sea kay” in his head? I hope so because that is AWESOME.

Alex: It’s actually in italics, too. Dick de Grey is a very clever penis. He can even spell.

He starts thrusting, then tells her to “come for me” after what can’t have been more than about thirty seconds. And she does. That’s right. Despite having never having had an orgasm in her entire life (apart from that one a few minutes ago), Ana is now able to instantly come on command. The sight of Ana having an orgasm makes Grey “come violently inside her“. That sounds unpleasant, but I’m just glad that’s over and I don’t have to recap any more terrible fucking.

Oh, wait. They’re going to do it again.

Grey flips Ana onto her front, so that he can take off his shirt without worrying about her touching him. He starts fingering her from behind, “taking particular care to stroke the front wall of her vagina“. I guess as well the helicopter stuff, E.L. James also copy-and-pasted from a sex manual. Grey sticks his fingers in her mouth, and you may recall from FSoG that Ana tastes the blood from her own broken hymen at this point. Grey gets so turned on that his cock “expands to bursting“. Ouch.

Mari: EL has a thing for busting?

Alex:

Grey puts on a condom and they fuck again while he says some gross stuff about wanting her to be sore in the morning. At some point he starts saying things like “You. Are. So. Sweet”, one word per thrust, and I don’t understand how Ana doesn’t just laugh and laugh at this because it sounds hilarious. (J: Plus, he goes on for what feels like a paragraph.) (M: And what if she forgets what the last word was? That would be a real confusing message.) Eventually he says “come for me” again and Ana does, instantly. Sure, whatever.

Then he comes too and they fall asleep and OH MY GOD IT’S OVER. THIS CHAPTER IS FINALLY OVER. THE END.

Trauma Flashback: I saw a review which suggested that the sex in Grey was a lot hotter than its predecessor. Hmmm. I suppose that without Ana saying “Oh my” and “Jeez” and talking about her inner goddess all the time it does read more like just run-of-the-mill porn. However, let’s not kid ourselves, the bulk of this really is just lifted from FSoG. Example:

Fifty Shades of Grey, Chapter Eight:

His finger moves to my other breast and repeats the process. My breasts swell, and my nipples harden under his steady gaze.

Grey, Chapter Six:

I repeat the process with the other cup and watch, fascinated, as her nipples grow under my steady gaze. 

I rest my case. And I left it to Mari to cover the rest of the trauma flashback because I am so DONE with this chapter. Sorry, Mari (actually I’m not even sorry).

– In FSoG, Ana says that she hurries into the shower because she’s embarrassed to be half naked in front of a stranger. Meanwhile, Grey is like, “aw man! Maybe she hates me.”

– Ana gropes herself in Grey’s shower and then later in the sex scene is like, “master-what-now?” Okay, girl.

– I (Mari) wrote this in the chapter five recap: See, whenever we do get to any “erotic” scene, you know what I’m going to be thinking, right? “He stalked you and you stole his toothbrush.” 

How the hell was I supposed to know that stalking and toothbrush sharing would be the least of my worries?

– Grey makes a big point about needing to get Ana’s permission in this chapter. In FSoG she says she wouldn’t do anything she doesn’t want to, but admits to herself that she’d do basically anything for sex. Even things she doesn’t want to do.

– This one chapter spans chapters five, six, seven and eight in Fifty Shades of Grey.

– Ana freaks out in this chapter, but not when he shows her the sex room. It’s when he starts talking about cheese. “We’re talking about cheese … Holy crap.”

– Ana screamed ARGH! like a pirate when Grey first enters her. All Grey hears is Ana “crying out.”

Baby Count: 22

BONUS Cock Count: 13

(I decided we needed an extra count this week. This is how many times Grey’s penis twitched or otherwise agreed with him about something in this chapter)

 

Favorite Comment Last Post: Even though Elliott says ‘dude’ way too much, he seems like he’d be a fun guy to hang out with. On top of being an abusive asshole Christian is just such a joyless fucker. Like having fun is beneath him and he actively looks down on people enjoying themselves.

 

Next time on Grey: Grey gets a BJ on Sunday May 22. 2011.