Fifty Shades of Snark, Part 3

They go outside, and somehow Christian saves Ana from being hit by a bike or something, which is just a pretext for her to end up in his arms trying to use mind-control to get him to kiss her. He doesn't. He's clearly all "I want you but I'm daaaaaangerous!" which Ana interprets to mean he doesn't want her. She leaves, she cries, she catalogues her "faults" in true Bella fashion. (Oh, no, she's too pale! Too skinny! How horrible it must be to be so thin and white! And with such large Japanamation eyes! How awful!)

She goes home, where Kate notices she's been crying. Ana chalks up the tears to the fact that she was "nearly knocked over by a cyclist," which everyone in this book seems to find appalling but which pretty much happens to me on a regular basis in Manhattan. They bicker about whether or not Christian likes her or whatever. Yawn. I feel like, by the time I'd reached college, I'd already gotten past the whole agonizing-over-whether-a-guy-likes-me-for-hours thing. Maybe it's just me.

We cut to Ana finishing her final exam, about which she's understandably very happy. She muses that she might get drunk in celebration, since apparently she's never been drunk before. Really? You're a senior in college and you've never been just a little drunk before? I'm just...highly skeptical, I guess. I was a goody-two-shoes English major, too, but I'd totally been drunk before my senior year ended.

She and Kate head back to their apartment to get a little crazy, but there's a package for Ana. It's three volumes of the first edition of Tess of the D'Urbervilles, from Christian Grey, duh. Ana figures out that he's trying to warn her away from him. She resolves to send them back with a cryptic, sarcastic note. Bet that doesn't happen, Ana, you drip.

They go to a bar and, lo and behold, actually do get drunk. Ana drunk-dials Christian, who is all, "Where are you? I NEED TO PROTECT YOU!" Okay, dad. She hangs up without telling him where she is. He calls back and claims he's coming to get her, even though she hasn't told him what bar she's visiting. She goes outside and José-- ahhhhh, José totally tries to date rape her, but Christian saves her! Just like when Edward saves Bella from the menacing gang-rape scenario in Port Angeles! THINGS ARE THE SAAAAAAME!

Christian holds her hair while she vomits, which is nice. Then he lectures her:

“We’ve all been here, perhaps not quite as dramatically as you,” he says dryly. “It’s
about knowing your limits, Anastasia. I mean, I’m all for pushing limits, but really this is
beyond the pale. Do you make a habit of this kind of behavior?”

Dude, aren't you only, like, six years older than her? Seriously, this whole father act is creeping me out. Also, apparently he tracked her phone to find out where she was. If it turns out he's been sneaking into her house and watching her sleep, he will officially be Edward Cullen.

He takes her inside and makes her drink some water. Then apparently he decides to dance with her? Because that's just what a girl wants to do after she's been vomiting for twenty minutes. But oh, wait, it's just so they can find Kate, who is pretty much openly salivating after Christian's brother, Elliot. Then Ana passes out.

She wakes up in a hotel room, in her tee shirt and underwear. Holy crap, how is she not freaking out about this? Christian comes in and asks her how she's feeling, and she answers "Better than I deserve," which makes me feel icky for reasons I don't quite understand. Apparently they didn't have sex, but he thought it was acceptable to take her pants off while she was unconscious. Again, I dunno exactly why this makes me so squirmy, but it totally does.

She's sort of like, "Dude, I didn't ask you to come and get me," and he's basically like, "Yeah, but you should be THANKING ME, because if I hadn't come along you'd have been totally RAPED, BITCH." Ugh. And then he refers to himself as a "Dark Knight." Sounds like someone's been reading a little too much Byron, if you ask me.

And then we have, so far, the most disturbing sentence in the book so far:

"Well, if you were mine, you wouldn’t be able to sit down for a week after the stunt you pulled yesterday."

*shudder*

Followed almost immediately by this:

"He’s the only man who has ever set my blood racing around my body. Yet, he’s so antagonizing too; he’s difficult, complicated, and confusing. One minute he rebuffs me, the next he sends me fourteen-thousand-dollar books, then he tracks me like a stalker. And for all that, I have spent the night in his hotel suite, and I feel safe. Protected. He cares enough to come and rescue me from some mistakenly perceived danger. He’s not a dark knight at all, but a white knight in shining, dazzling armor – a classic romantic hero – Sir Gawain or Lancelot."

*eyeroll*

I think I must have been the only girl in the world who has never fantasized about a white knight coming to rescue me. Sure, I've been drawn to the dark and moody guys in my day, but I don't think I ever dreamed of someone coming to save me like in a fairy tale. Because, y'know, I like to save others, instead. I guess I'm the one with the savior complex.

And then, while she's in the shower, Ana has to go through the whole litany of "OMG, does he like me or not??" all over again. Gah. Really? Apparently the fact that he didn't violate her unconscious body means he couldn't really want her. What?

I kind of get the appeal of the "reluctant romantic" archetype, now that I really think about it. I think the reason this "gentlemanly" type-- the Edward, the Christian, the guy who wants you but doesn't make a move because he wants to protect you from himself-- is appealing to women precisely because we are so very used to being objectified. When I walk to work in the morning, I always wear headphones, even if I'm not even listening to anything on my iPod. Why? Because if I don't, I get cat-called, whistled at, propositioned. Women are constantly expected to be fending off advances from guys they don't want. So I totally understand the appeal of a guy who is sexy and who likes you and finds you attractive-- but who doesn't come on to you all the damn time, who hangs back, who isn't constantly coming forward. I can see the appeal there, actually.

Christian's dogsbody has brought Ana some new clothes, including, of course, ridiculous sexy underwear. Oh, geez. She goes out and has breakfast with him. He scolds her for having damp hair (???) and then admits that he totally wants to sex her up, but not romantically, just sexually. She's confused, and he says he'll "acquaint [her] with the facts" and obtain her "written consent" to sex her up tonight. She's like, "Yeah, totes, let's do it." He's all, "Hey, did you know I like to fly helicopters? Since I'm rich and all."

She brushes her teeth with his toothbrush in secret. And thinks it's hot. Okay, now Ana's the weirdo.

They get into the elevator and have a quick make-out sesh, and then Christian drives her home. Ana doesn't know who Thomas Tallis is, which means she obviously hasn't seen The Tudors yet. Talk about hot, debauched sex! They return to Ana's place to find Kate in a good mood, since she shagged Christian's seemingly nicer adopted brother the night before. The boys leave, the girls gossip. Ana goes to work and wonders--YET AGAIN--what he could possibly see in her, what with all that horrid thinness and paleness and all.

Y'know that friend you had in high school or college--the one who all the boys liked, who was skinny and lovely and flirtatious and shapely and totally cool, and knew it, but constantly complained about how her pores were huge or her eyes were too blue or some shit, because she loved to fish for compliments? That's who Ana reminds me of.

After work, Christian is waiting for her in an Audi. WTF is it with this book (and Twilight, for that matter) being so weirdly specific about car makes and models? Like, a car is never just a car-- it's a Mercedes, a BMW, an Audi, a Rolls Royce. Seriously? Who the hell cares? I don't know the difference. I feel like I get more complete descriptions of the cars than I do of the people. It's like, hey, Christian Grey drives a 2012 Audi A5 with leather interior and moon roof and heated massage seats, and oh, also, he has hair of some color or whatever. (By the way, I had to Google "Audi" just now to find out what the model names were. Because us priests' wives are not exactly experts on luxury anything vehicles.)

Christian has had a long day of hiking with his brother. How does someone who had built a multi-billion dollar corporation by the age of 27 have time for all this hiking and dancing and coffee and meeting with random college student newspaper journalists for interviews and photo shoots? I dunno, it's a mystery. They take off in his fancy helicopter, because of course he's a helicopter pilot, too, which I'm sure he learned to do in his inexplicably vast amounts of spare time. Ana compliments him by calling him "competent," which seems like a pretty tepid compliment to me. She keeps thinking about how she's in over her head, out of her depth, blah blah blah. They go to his gleaming white palatial apartment and have some wine. Ana asks him why he gave her Tess of the D'Urbervilles as a gift. He replies: "It seemed appropriate. I could hold you to some impossibly high ideal like Angel Clare or debase you completely like Alec D’Urberville." I don't really think Tess is a literary heroine whose relationships I'd like to echo in my own life. Talk about a Madonna/whore dichotomy here. Yuck.

Then he makes her sign a non-disclosure agreement before they have sex, which she doesn't even read before she signs it.

And with that, this book crosses way beyond creepy into outright alarming.