Grey shows up at her apartment.  BTW, he’s still hot.  I know at least a few of you were worried about that.  Don’t lie.  Someone out there has to be thinking that he might have de-hottified in the last few pages, and that’s why the book has to constantly assure us that he is, indeed, still hot.

Grey brings champagne.  Is there ever a time when these two get together and don’t feel the need to drink something?

Ana tries to give the books back, and he says that she’s defying him and she needs to cut that shit out right now, because she’s his sub.  He’s going to buy her shit, and she has to just accept it and like it, but not think about it. 

It’s very simple. You don’t have to think about this. As a submissive you would just be grateful for them.

Submissives still get to think.  Really.  The ‘not thinking’ thing?  That’s not across the board.  She is allowed to still have a fucking opinion.  Also, there was no clause in that contract about Grey being her sugar-daddy.  It said he would buy her clothes, but not anything else.

Ana says that since she can’t give them back to Grey, she’s going to donate them to a charity.  Grey doesn’t like this decision, so Ana says she’ll think on it, and Grey tells her not to think.  Every time he says it, it gets more and more creepy.  It’s because he just assumed that she doesn’t want to think.  No, that she shouldn’t think.  I get that there’s a lot of times when it can be uber-sexy to let go and not think about things, but…that shouldn’t apply to every single detail of one’s life, like Grey is implying here.

He doesn’t want a submissive, he wants an animated sex doll.

[They have a short argument about Grey buying her things.]

“It makes me feel cheap,” I murmur.

Christian runs his hand through his hair, exasperated.

“It shouldn’t. You’re over-thinking it, Anastasia. Don’t place some vague moral judgment on yourself based on what others might think. Don’t waste your energy. It’s only because you have reservations about our arrangement, that’s perfectly natural. You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into.”

UHG.  Look, Ana is allowed to feel whatever she wants about Grey buying her gifts.  If she shouldn’t base her opinion on the rest of society, then she shouldn’t base her opinion on him, either.  Just because the rest of the world may think a thing, that doesn’t mean she has to automatically think the opposite just to be…I don’t know, right, or independently minded, or whatever.  Ana is perfectly within her rights to feel like she is being bought and paid for by Mr. “I’m a very wealthy man.”  A person’s feelings are individual and he has no business trying to dictate them or tell her that they are wrong.

What he’s basically asking her to do is not let the rest of the world tell her what to think and instead let him tell her what to think.  One’s not really any better than the other.  Especially with Grey in the equation. 

To make Ana feel better, Grey plies her with champagne.  Because he’s a creep.

Not only that, but every time it’s brought up, Ana calls the wine/champagne/whatever ‘delicious.’  But she hasn’t had anything to drink before that party at the start of the book.  Isn’t wine an acquired taste?  I remember hating it at first. 

“Oh… did I?” I take another sip. Wow he has a memory for detail. Hmm… this cham­pagne really is very good.

I can’t tell if this is really shitty writing, or if it’s Ana getting fuzzy from alcohol.  I’m going to vote for shitty writing, because she’s only had half a cup. 

Grey mentions that his sister is coming in from Paris, and we just met Kate’s brother, so of course those two are going to be set up.  Heaven forbid we split up the Cullen family from Twilight. 

Ana mentions that she has interviews in Seattle, and Grey apparently thinks she should have told him sooner.  Not sure where it would have fit around all the sex.  I kind of want to say it’s none of his business, but on the other hand, they probably should have been at the “share news of major life events” level before they got to the “engage in 24/7 kink” level.  So…yeah, it’s just shitty writing.

Grey tells her to finish her drink before they finalize her soft limits.  Because this book has to go out of its way to point out that they are getting tipsy before discussing this very important and confusing topic.

He threatens to spank her if she gets cheeky at him, and finally the thought of that makes her get a little excited, instead of just scared like before.  Of course, it’s come so late and after she’s already had so long to consider it, I’m kind of wary of calling it an honest reaction.  Could be, though.

Oh, fuck you, Grey.  Ana says she doesn’t want to try anal, and without missing a beat, Grey says

“I’ll agree to the fisting, but I’d really like to claim your ass, Anastasia. But we’ll wait for that. Besides, it’s not something we can dive into,” he smirks at me. “Your ass will need training.”

No.  No, this is not how this works.  You do not take someone saying “I don’t want to do this” and answer with “Well, I do, so we’re going to do it.  We’ll wait a bit, though.”  FUCK YOU, BLUEBEARD.  A GOOD DOM WOULD RESPECT A WOMAN’S WISHES REGARDING HER OWN BODY.  This is just so disgusting.  I mean, he could have said that he really wanted to do it and ask her to reconsider, or ask if she would reconsider after they were more comfortable with all the other kinds of sex, but to just outright say “eh, I want it, so we’ll do it”?  Can he get any worse?

He does say that if she doesn’t like after they try it, they won’t do it again.  Well…no, that doesn’t make anything better.  Not even a little bit.  She said no anal, and he rolled right over her.

Then they go on about sex toys and Ana has to have them explained to her because one of the options is ‘Other.’  Is it just me, or is it a really bad idea to have ‘Other’ on a list of acceptable things in a BDSM agreement?  I mean ‘Other’ leaves…pretty much everything under the sun.

Grey laughs at Ana for being inexperienced.

“I am sorry. Believe me. I don’t mean to laugh. I’ve never had this conversation in so much detail. You’re just so inexperienced. I’m sorry.”

First of all, why have you not had this conversation before?  It’s pretty damn generic.  Second, why the hell is any of this funny?  Really, I’m just failing to see the humor in a young woman wanting to learn what’s covered by ‘Other’ on a list of sex toys.  It’s just…there’s nothing amusing about that.  There’s nothing offensive about it either.  It’s pretty neutral.

Finally they talk about bondage.  He also brings up that, if she agrees to gagging, they’ll use hand signals instead of safewords.  It’s almost bizarre how this book will hit good details like this, but fail so hard on everything else.

I blink up at him. But if I’m trussed up, how’s that going to work? My brain is begin­ning to fog… hmm alcohol.

Like this one.  THIS IS WHY YOU DON’T DRINK ALCOHOL WHILE NEGOTIATING.  All this that they’re talking about?  Not consensual.  Not even remotely.  Not only is she getting foggy from the drink, but we’ve also got lines like this:

He glares at me. “Don’t make me do it again,” he warns. And I think I visibly shrink… oh, he’s so bossy.

I mean, yeah, it’s cool to act like that in a scene if that’s what everyone has agreed on.  But he shouldn’t be intimidating her while they are negotiating while she is drinking.  It’s like every level on which this could go wrong, it has.

“Do you like tying your submissives up so they can’t touch you?”

He gazes at me, his eyes widening.

“That’s one of the reasons,” he says quietly.

This is going to be a thing, isn’t it?  Uhg.

“You don’t like talking about that,” I murmur.

“No, I don’t. Would you like another drink? It’s making you brave, and I need to know how you feel about pain.”

Wow.  Wow.  Just a total fail on understanding how alcohol works.  I’ve heard this view from people in a non-sexual context, too.  People who say “I like to see my friends get drunk; it’s the only time I get to see the ‘real’ them.”

Ana is not getting braver.  She’s losing her inhibitions.  But that does not reveal the ‘real’ her, because a person’s inhibitions are part of who they are.  In effect, he’s only seeing half of who she really is.  If she’s okay with something only while in a chemically altered state, then that isn’t ‘real.’  That’s the opposite of ‘real.’  Think back on the last stupid thing you did while drunk that you regretted the next morning.  Was that the ‘real’ you?

Then they talk about pain.

“Do you have to do it?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Goes with the territory, Anastasia. It’s what I do. I can see you’re nervous. Let’s go through methods.”

No.  No it doesn’t.  You don’t have to do it.  There is no way to twist this around and say that she has to take pain.  You can argue that ‘BDSM’ includes sadomasochism, and thus the definition must include pain, but…why does Ana have to engage in BDSM?  Why not just a D/s arrangement?  It is possible to pick and choose your kinks.  You can have a Dom that orders you around and ties you up, but doesn’t do physical punishment.  She does not have to endure pain if she doesn’t want to.

Grey can say it’s a dealbreaker for him, because he really likes doling out pain, but Ana doesn’t have to have sex with him, even if the book seems to be assuming that’s true.

“We can work up to that.”

“Or not do it at all,” I whisper.

“This is part of the deal, baby, but we’ll work up to all of this. Anastasia, I won’t push you too far.”

No part of this is in any way a negotiation.  He’s just deciding things, then stomping all over any of her concerns. 

This is why limited scenes are important.  She can negotiate a scene with only a few things, then after she’s comfortable, decide that she wants more, and negotiate it for the next scene.  That would be a proper ‘working up.’  Not telling her that she has to be okay with everything, right now, no objections possible, and then Grey is the one deciding when she’s ‘ready’ or not.

Grey finally agrees to a romance.  Um…sort of.

“Outside of the time you’re my sub, perhaps we could try. I don’t know if it will work. I don’t know about separating everything. It may not work. But I’m willing to try. Maybe one night a week. I don’t know.”

You know, this would be a lot easier to make fun of if I knew what they thought of as ‘more.’  What are they going to do one night a week?  Cuddle and watch movies?  Go out to dinner?  Have vanilla sex?  Talk?

All of that shit does not constitute a romance.  Really, it doesn’t.  You can do it with a romantic partner, but you can also do it with a platonic partner.  Hell, I cuddle and watch movies with my MOM all the time, and I’m sure as hell not hot for her.  All of that is just the trappings of a relationship.  What makes it a romance or not is…well, I guess everyone would have a slightly different answer.  I would say that romance is a subtle thing, and defined mostly by how you care for a person and what place that person has in your life relative to everyone else.  The actual actions taken, not really so important.  Grey could be ‘hearts and flowers’ for Ana while also tying her up so long as he just cared for her, was considerate of her wishes, and made her pleasure and wellbeing a priority.

Oh.  Well, then their romance is pretty fucked, I guess.  If he can’t give enough of a shit about her to care about her saying ‘no’ to a cane and anal, then I doubt he’s going to care a whole lot more about her on their one night a week.

Grey says he will only do this nebulous, undefined ‘more’ thing if she accepts the car that he bought her.  It’s another Audi.  Is the author getting paid for all this product placement?  Ana doesn’t want to take the car, but grudgingly agrees to consider it a loan.  This makes Grey angry, so naturally that means it’s time for sex.  Because BDSM sex is always angry, right?  That’s why they use the paddles and such, right?  Uhg, fuck this book.

My subconscious is behind the sofa again, head hidden under her hands.

She’s given up on trying to protect you and is just hiding.  Frankly, I don’t blame her.

They get mildly hot and heavy in the bedroom, and Grey asks if he should make her come by playing with her breasts.  Which just highlights what was so strange about it the first time.  Not that it happened (thought that was strange, too) but that Grey just rolled right along with it, as if everyone does that.  He’s treating it like a thing that he can just do because he’s that much better at touching boobs than anyone else.

But he doesn’t get her off, because she has ‘displeased’ him.  And then he tears off her panties like it’s no big thing.  Um…well, we don’t get a description of said panties.  Maybe they didn’t have any elastic in them, or any reinforced bands.  Although in that case, they were probably really cheap panties.  (Or really expensive.  Funny how that works.)

He tells her to undress him.  Now I’m confused.  Didn’t we have a Big Thing a few pages ago where he’s got issues with people touching him?  She made that really confusing point about how he ties up his subs so they can’t touch him, the whole nine yards?  And now he’s asking her to undress him? 

But she can’t take off his t-shirt?  Just his pants.  And he’s telling her that she’s in charge?  I’m so confused.  None of this is wrong, in the sense that all of this is perfectly fine to enjoy.  It’s just not following in any sort of logical progression from the previous scene.  It’s like the author wrote a whole bunch of independent sex scenes, then decided to plug them into the rest of the ‘plot’ at random.

Well, Ana yanks his pants off, and the obligatory reference to Christmas morning is made.  (Why can’t anyone ever be a Thanksgiving feast, or an Easter egg hunt?)

She gives him a blowjob and then they do it with her on top.  I think I figured out why I’m so fucking bored in these scenes.  The grammar is just atrocious.  Everything “I did this” and “I did that.”  It’s just a list of poorly punctuated actions, occasionally mixed with silted dialogue or a reiteration that what’s going on is ‘so hot.’  Or something about her inner goddess, which really doesn’t help.

And the ellipses.  My god, the ellipses.  They’re everywhere. 

Well, they end the chapter with fucking, so…yeah, that was awkward.