Darker Chapter 8 (Part 1): The Endless Worrying of Christian Grey

Previously, Christian fired Jack Hyde for his attempted assault on Ana, and then his IT guy found a bunch of files about Christian’s family members on Jack’s computer. Other pressing issues in Christian’s life: Christian isn’t sure about the future of his sexy sex dungeon playroom, and Ana wants to get a drink with her friend Jose when he’s in town but he’s a BOY and how can Ana have friends who are BOYS when Christian wants to marry her did I mention Jose is a BOY did I mention Christian wants to marry Ana???

Darker: Chapter 8 (Part 1)

THURSDAY, JUNE 16, 2011

The chapter starts with another dream sequence. It’s still unclear whether E L James intended these as a way to include flashbacks to flesh out Christian’s childhood and then just got bored, or if… she just got bored.

Grandpa looks at me.
He’s talking now?
Yes.
Well, that’s just great.

As a reminder, “E L James revisits the world of Fifty Shades with a deeper and darker take” are the first words in the Amazon description for Darker. The Fifty Shades franchise is basically that “when you order something online vs when it comes in the mail” meme.

Christian’s dream ends with Jack Hyde watching him from behind a tree, then Christian wakes up, tells us he “was startled by something in my dream” (yeah, dude, we were there, we’re here on this journey with you), and then tells us he can’t remember what it was (DUDE, WE WERE THERE).

Christian and Ana have sex again. Christian complains about condoms again. Guess it must be a day of the week ending in “y”.

“I can’t wait until Saturday.”
She looks up at me eagerly. “Your party?”
“No. I can stop using these fuckers.” I roll the condom on.
“Aptly named.” She giggles.

Christian chews Ana out for giggling (god bless Ana for somehow finding Christian Grey funny, I guess), and then does the opposite of discouraging fits of giggles:

we make sweet, unhurried love.
No more giggling.

Sorry, the blog is cancelled now, my eyes just rolled so hard they fell out of my head.

Later that morning, Christian goes into the sexy sex dungeon playroom and sadly looks over his cane collection, knowing that Ana will never be into those so he has no reason to hold onto them. Christian Grey channels his inner Dorian Grey as E L James goes a little less fifty shades of Grey and a little more chapter 11 of Picture of Dorian Grey on his cane collection.

I have several, from all over the world. I run my fingers over my favorite, fashioned from rosewood and the finest leather. I bought it in London.

Cool story, bro?

The others are made from bamboo, plastic, carbon fiber, wood, and suede.

Boy, if it wasn’t obvious before that Fifty Shades‘ real kink isn’t BDSM but just having too much money and lots of things.

I find where my eyes rolled off to right as Christian does the opposite of making it easier to understand where he’s coming from again.

Ana is never going to enjoy these, it’s just not her thing.
What is your thing, Anastasia?
Books.
It will never be canes.

I AM DYING. “BOOKS. IT WILL NEVER BE CANES.” I feel like… these are not super comparable things? At no point does Ana get off on books. This is like saying “What is your thing, Christian? Money. It will never be condoms.” Like, it’s true, but I don’t think you can say that point A got us to point B.

On their way to work, Ana and Christian fight about getting to drive the car that he bought her, and I’m just gonna skip the half dozen pages where they inexplicably fight about this. Again. Christian and Ana have a few conversations about how they’re going to meet with his therapist later and Christian worries that Ana will leave her, and I’m just gonna skip the half dozen pages where Ana reassures him she won’t. Again.

Ana wonders what work will be like now that her boss is gone and idly hopes that her new boss will be a woman, which somehow leads to Christian fantasizing about Ana having sexytimes with a woman.

“Well, you’re less likely to object to me going away [on business] with her,” she says. [sic, as this should all be in subjunctive tense, OBVIOUSLY. God, Fifty Shades, how could you get this wrong]
Oh, baby, you’d appeal to women, too.
Mrs. Jones places my omelet in front of me, distracting me from my brief and extremely enjoyable fantasy of Ana with another woman.

Ana: “When I had a male boss, you wouldn’t let me go on a business trip, therefore my boss should be a woman. Is that what lean in is? Feminism?”
Christian: (has a sex fantasy)

She sighs and her expression clouds. “I want to know that I’m enough for you. That’s all.”
“And you won’t take my word for it?” I release her.

See the aforementioned half-dozen pages of Christian not taking Ana’s word about how she wants to be with him.

“I knew several women who like doing what I like to do. […] I’ve never had an emotional connection with any of them. It’s only ever been you, Ana.”
“Because you never gave them a chance. You’ve spent too long locked up in your fortress.”

This prompts Fifty Shades to almost have some self-awareness about the way it fetishes late capitalist socioeconomic privilege…

Am I locked in a fortress?
Maybe.
I stare out of the window. Commuters hurry to work, wrapped up in minutiae of their daily lives. Here, in the back of my car, I’m removed from it all.

…except by “almost”, I mean “and then that’s it before Christian starts yammering on about how he needs a woman to save him from the darkness inside him or some shit”.

Is that what she means? If it is, it’s Ana who’s given me the key to escape.

Ana calls Christian to tell her she got promoted. At no point does Christian have a single thought about how he feels happy for her, just that he feels attacked that she thought he’d lie about pulling strings to get her promoted. Fir- first world problems?

Christian arrives at the office and continues to never appear to do any actual work, instead suddenly deciding he needs to buy a house for him and Anastasia, and spends the entire day “getting sucked into real-estate websites”. At no point does he consult Ana about this. He tells us “It’s addictive”. He tells the love of his life nothing.

I’d like to find a plot of land and build a house. Make it ecologically sustainable. Elliot could build it for me. […] The house is old, built in 1924, and has only come on the market in the last few days.

GO AWAY, CHAPTER ELEVEN OF DORIAN GREY.

Christian takes a break from his busy day or not doing any real work to do a different kind of not any real work.

she puts through the florist, who cheerily asks me to dictate a message for the card. “Congratulations, Miss Steele. And all on your own! No help from your overfriendly, neighborhood, megalomaniac CEO. Love, Christian.”
“Got that. Thank you, sir.”

Christian Grey: “USE YOUR BLACKBERRY, DAMMIT. DO YOU NOT VALUE MY PRIVACY, ANASTASIA?”
Also Christian Grey: “Yes, I will dictate a message.”
Florist on the other end of the phone: “Megalomaniac CEO. Got it. May I add, I find this very normal and will totally not be telling all my friends about this as soon as I’m off the phone?”

“Thank you.”
I go back to looking at houses online

Of course he fucking is.

After work/”work”, Christian picks up Ana. Ana mentions that Ethan (her BFF’s brother) took Mia (Christian’s sister) out to lunch after Ana had to cancel on her. All of this is new information to Christian Grey, who is historically very good at receiving new information about the people in his life.

The beach bum, with my sister. I’m not sure how I feel about that. […] I’ve never really thought about my sister dating. There was that guy at the ball, but she didn’t seem particularly interested in him.

This section of the chapter ends with that sentence, so clearly E L James isn’t particularly interested either.

They go to Christian’s therapist at last, but Flynn suggests Ana might be more comfortable if Christian leaves the room, so we don’t get any of this from Christian’s perspective. Christian spends the whole time anxiously pacing around and, hilariously, trying to “find his happy place”.

Find your happy place, Grey.
I’m in the orchard with Elliot. We’re kids. We’re running through the trees. […]
We’re in a kayak with Mom. Dad and Mia are ahead of us. We’re racing Dad. […]
I’m making love to Ana. Breathing in her scent. Kissing her throat, her breast.

After the appointment, Ana doesn’t give Christian specifics about what she talked to his therapist about. Christian is mostly just worried about whether she’ll agree to marry him already or not.

“Under doctor’s orders I am going to give you the benefit of the doubt.”
“What does that mean?”
“You’ll see.”
Will she marry me or not?

The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing Western civilization that Fifty Shades was subversive because it was a romance where the guy was obsessed with getting married and because it had the word “spank” in it.

I don’t understand why she hasn’t accepted my proposal.
That’s where I want to be.
Married.

Jesus, it’s all marriage and condoms with this guy.

Ana and Christian fight about Ana driving the car that he bought her, and I’m just gonna skip the half dozen pages where they inexplicably fight about this. Again.

“Slow down!” She’s doing thirty-eight through the neighborhood!

Really? Because it feels like we’re only going 15 through this boring-ass story.

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Hello, readers! Throwing out a quick plug for a book with an actual story in it. One of my best friends published her most recent NaNoWriMo story (I only hit 3/5 the word count and wrote maybe 1/5 of the story, so I gotta respect that), and I just finished reading it, and it was a hoot. It’s a satire of Greek mythology and hero’s journey stories, and you’re here reading this blog, so I’m going to assume parody just might be your cup of tea. Check out The Story of Ohtli, Son of a God. Let me know which dick joke is your favorite!