Fifty Shades of Tedious Fuckery 2 (Vol. 2)
Christian is confused by a vegetable.
Christian and Ana get to the restaurant and he immediately orders steak for the two of them, without so much as looking at Ana. He's essentially the asshole character from an Eighties film that Molly Ringwald finally realises is terrible and walks out on and everyone cheers. He is the opposite of a romantic hero. But apparently an arrogant, cruel, controlling and abusive fuckface is what women are looking for in a man nowadays and if you'll excuse me, I'm off to BURN DOWN EVERYTHING.
Over dinner, Christian angrily tells Ana off for leading José on with her hug and kiss, as if his fucking planet-sized jealousy isn't actually the issue here. This is a guy who literally just bought seven giant portraits of Ana's face so OTHER PEOPLE CAN'T LOOK AT HER.
He snaps at the waiter he orders wine from (nothing gets a girl going like her date being unnecessarily rude to waiting staff) and Ana wonders what his problem is. But really, for a guy who's meant to be so WONDERFUL and MISUNDERSTOOD, he does an awful lot of snapping at and generally being an asshole to people he clearly sees as less important than he is. Would you like to know how often Christian "snaps" at people? Because I counted.
32 times. (He is CONSTANTLY SNAPPING. Although he only snarls at Ana 8 times.)
Isn't he a fucking DELIGHT?
In the meantime:
"Somewhere in the depths of my psyche, my inner goddess rises sleepily, stretches, and smiles. She's been asleep for a while."
Oh here we fucking go. Someone please shoot that bitch with a tranquiliser gun and maybe she'll go back to sleep.
They talk some stuff over, he tells her she should have used the safe word during their last encounter (which is true, although he also could have read the situation a little better) and says that he's been miserable for the past five days too, although his way of saying that is "I’m in perpetual night here".
Anyway, they eat dinner (when her steak arrives, Ana's reaction is "Holy hell. Food" because she's forgotten that she's in a restaurant, I guess?) and Christian says he has a proposition for her.
He has a proposition? What now? A couple of scenarios run through my mind: kidnap, working for him. No, nothing makes sense.
If KIDNAP is something that legitimately comes to mind when, over dinner, your ex-boyfriend says he has a proposition for you, THEN WHAT THE JAYSUS FUCK ARE YOU STILL DOING THERE?
They get into the car after dinner and Taylor drives them back to Seattle, while they discuss this proposition, which basically turns out to be something along the lines of "let's keep fucking, but this time I won't wallop you with a belt". Although Christian's opening gambit, said with an entirely straight face and without a hint of humour (because it's Christian and he's precisely zero craic) is:
"Do you want a regular vanilla relationship with no kinky fuckery at all?"
Imagine saying that and being dead serious. Imagine. Kinky fuckery, like. State of him.
They agree to do away with all the rules and punishments, but Christian still doesn't want to be touched because of his childhood, crack whore mother, etc etc, whatever. He actually calls his mother "the crack whore" in that conversation, because the writing in this is just so awesome. Also, he reveals that his mother killed herself and it took four days for her body and baby Christian to be discovered.
All that takes three pages of outrageously boring dialogue, with a few nonsensical Anastasia classics thrown in, such as:
"My anxiety level has shot up several magnitudes on the Richter scale."
"I stare at him, stunned, with no thoughts in my head at all - like a computer crash."
No thoughts in her head at all apart from the computer crash one, which isn't anything like what a computer crash actually is.
Christian drops Ana off at her place and gives her a big gift-wrapped box and says he wants to see her the following night.
“My boss wants me to go for a drink with him tomorrow.”
Christian’s face hardens. “Does he, now?” His voice is laced with latent menace.
“To celebrate my first week,” I add quickly.
LATENT MENACE. HOW LOVELY.
He agrees to collect her after her work drinks, Ana goes inside and opens the box to find the MacBook and Blackberry she had previously given back, along with a new iPad. See, latent menace is no big deal when it's swiftly followed by expensive gifts! Yaay! Also, the iPad has a playlist of songs that Christian put on it, to tell Ana how he feeeels because he has the emotional capabilities of a grumpy teenager.
The next day after work, Ana is heading for the bar across the road where everyone from the office is having a drink. Before that however, there's an infuriating amount of emails between her and Christian, many of which are only one sentence long, so I find myself hissing Have you cunts ever heard of texting? at the page.
Ana eventually leaves the office, only to be approached by a pale, dishevelled girl who looks a bit like her and knows her name. Her clothes are too big for her, she's got a manky bloodied bandage around one wrist and sadly says things like "What do you have that I don’t?" before wandering away.
"My subconscious rears her ugly head and hisses at me - She has something to do with Christian."
Ah, subconscious. Good of you to join us. Also, thank you Captain Obvious. She may as well have had TROUBLED FORMER SUB stamped on her forehead.
Ana gets to the bar, a bit shaken, has a few beers with her colleagues and proceeds to forget about the whole thing. Even though any normal person would be like "The weirdest thing just happened!" to the first person they'd meet. She gets talking to Claire, the receptionist and because Ana is just plain rude despite her innocent virgin act, starts to absent-mindedly wonder how Kate is doing on holiday, instead of listening to what Claire is saying. Thinking of Kate then reminds her:
Oh, and Ethan her brother will be back next Tuesday, and he’ll be staying in our apartment. I can’t imagine Christian is going to be happy about that.
OH HAI RED FLAG. For God's sake, it's none of Christian's business who Kate has over to HER APARTMENT, just because Ana happens to be sponging off her, rent free. And seriously, if your stupid boyfriend is going to freak out every time you interact with a man you're not related to, then it might be time to cut your losses and, as I've previously stated, RUN THE FUCK AWAY.
Anyway, Ana ends up chatting to Jack, her boss, (UH OH, UNSANCTIONED CONVERSATION WITH A MAN WHO HAS A PENIS) and when he asks her if she has any plans for the weekend, Christian magically appears and drapes his arm around her shoulder "in a seemingly casual display of affection - but I know differently. He is staking a claim, and on this occasion, it’s very welcome." OH PHEW, CRISIS AVERTED.
So he's meeting Ana's boss for the first time and instead of introducing himself and shaking his hand like a normal human, he wordlessly drapes himself all over his girlfriend, kisses her and "stares at Jack, his expression impassive." Then when Ana does the introductions, Christian goes “I’m the boyfriend.” Dude. Calm the fuck down. He's genuinely one step away from peeing in a circle all around Ana.
They leave and head to Ana's apartment, and Christian gives her a "scorching, panty-combusting look", which sounds downright painful. On the way there, Christian starts asking if Jack Hyde is good at his job and that he'd better stay away from Ana or "he’ll find himself on his ass on the sidewalk." Ana's all like "Eh, he hasn't done anything and you don't have that kind of power."
Christian gives me his enigmatic smile.
“You’re buying the company,” I whisper in horror.
CHRISTIAN HAS BOUGHT THE COMPANY THAT SHE WORKS FOR. ABORT ABORT GET OUT OF THE CAR. TUCK AND ROLL TIME, STEELE.
For once in her life, Ana actually has an appropriate reaction to something and is furious with him. He goes on about how he wanted to get into publishing anyway and SIP is a profitable company blah blah blah, it's clearly bollocks though, not least because his first explanation was “Because I can, Anastasia. I need you safe.” CHRIST ON A TRAMPOLINE. THE FURTHER SHE GETS AWAY FROM YOU, THE SAFER SHE IS. To her credit, she calls him an arse, although it's a wildly unlikely thing for an American to say, so well done there EL James. However, they both end up laughing, because his frightening need to control everything in Ana's life is actually hilarious, I suppose.
“Just because I have a stupid damn grin on my face doesn’t mean I’m not mad as hell at you,” I mutter breathlessly, trying to suppress my high-school-cheerleader giggling. Though I was never cheerleader - the bitter thought crosses my mind.
Really. Even with your sparkling personality. Quelle sur-fucking-prise. And surely right now you should be a little more concerned with the fact that your boyfriend is A TERRIFYING STALKER.
They get into the house and there's so much goddamn tedious conversation I can hardly stand it. He does his usual What's Ana Eaten Today? segment and when she says she hasn't eaten since lunchtime, he gets all frowny-faced, particularly when she says they'll have to go to the shop for food as there's nothing in the house and I keep thinking "Please just get a fucking takeaway and spare me a scene where you two insufferable titwipes go food shopping together."
“When was the last time you were in a supermarket?”
Christian looks out of place, but he follows me dutifully, holding a shopping basket.
Bastards.
Thankfully it's quick, but also completely pointless and doesn't actually move the plot along in any way, shape or form. They get back to the apartment, Ana gets started on a stir-fry and Christian says he wants to help.
I place a chopping board and some red peppers in front of him. He stares down at them in confusion.
“You’ve never chopped a vegetable?”
“No.”
Oh my fucking god. CONFUSED BY A VEGETABLE. Good luck making that sexy, Jamie Dornan.
Anyway, Ana has come up with a dastardly plan to drive him wild and makes sure to brush off him constantly while moving around the kitchen. Her plan works and Christian is overcome with desire:
“I think we’ll eat later,” he says. “Put the chicken in the fridge.”
This is not a sentence I had ever expected to hear from Christian Grey, (?) and only he can make it sound hot, really hot.
Wow, "put the chicken in the fridge"? Talk dirty to me Christian. "I've finished peeling those spuds." OOHHHH. "Is there any ketchup in the press?" SOOOO SEXYYYY. Tools.
He carries her to the bedroom and says that she has to tell him exactly what she wants.
“Undress me.” I am panting already.
“Good girl,” he murmurs.
And my face does this:
Then follows an excruciating sex scene, where Ana has to repeatedly tell us how hot the entire thing is and there are terrible parts like "he then reaches down to his discarded jeans, and like a good boy scout, produces a foil packet." What the hell are boy scouts getting up to these days?
Also, while Ana is mid-blowjob, she thinks to herself "I feel like Aphrodite".
