The other day in the car I listened to my mother rant about how disgusted she is by Christian and how he purchased SIP. She’s not even reading these books, but they still incite so much anger in her that I have to sit and patiently listen to her rant about Ana and Christian as though they were real people.
Chapter 4
Christian finds that deflated Charlie Tango balloon under Ana’s pillow. Something about the image of Ana sleeping with a deflated helicopter balloon just cracks me up, but Christian seems to find it moving. Their raucous sexing has worked up Christian’s appetite, and this is how he chooses to express himself:
“Now that would be telling.” He grins. “Come cook me some food, wench. I’m famished,” he adds, sitting up suddenly and dragging me with him.
“Wench?” I giggle.
“Wench. Food, now, please.”
If I was reading this dialogue in a book of quality, or hearing it in a film, I may be like, “Oh, they so silly and goofy,” but because of how friggen creepy I find Christian, I’m not entirely sure he isn’t genuinely calling her a wench. This guy.
So they hang out and eat and Ana’s like, “I sit cross-legged beside him, eating greedily, beyond hungry, and admire his naked feet.” This is NOT the first time this has happened. Remember that Levi’s wet dream she had? Is this cleverly written foreshadowing about Ana’s yet-to-be-revealed foot fetish? Only time will tell.
They have a very normal conversation in which Ana talks about hating her mother’s third husband, Steve, and Christian muses about Ana looked after Ray when she moved in with him. It’s around this point the conversation starts getting annoying because Christian is all, “I want to take care of you, and that means buying SIP! I don’t really care if you’re mad, nothing would have stopped me. This is how I take care of people!” It does kind of bring up an interesting thing about Christian’s character, and people in general, sometimes people just know how to express emotions like love and anger in certain ways because no one really taught them otherwise. So even though I hate Christian, I find this interesting. Good work, James. Also, my Stockholm Syndrome is showing again.
During their pre-sex/ice-cream flirtation, Christian says, “Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit.” He would probably hate this blog. I’m cool with that.
As you can probably imagine, things get really sexy.
His lips quirk upward in half a smile. “Wouldn’t dream of it, baby, but I do want to mess with you and these sheets.”
My body practically convulses.
It’s been awhile since James put in a sexy reference to convulsion. I appreciate her efforts because this kind of laughter is priceless. Can you imagine if someone said something so hot to you that you basically had a seizure or were electrocuted? That sounds both terrible and amazing.
Sex begins, and Ana takes this time to remind us how hot Christian is. As though we could have possibly forgotten after a page where she didn’t mention it. Oh wait, she again reminds us of this mere paragraphs later…except this time it’s in a bizarre context:
He looks so freaking hot, young and carefree—sitting on me and eating from a tub of ice cream—eyes bright, face luminous.
It would be the most hilarious thing ever if he just sat there and finished the tub of ice-cream and didn’t do anything to Ana with it at all. But of course, my dreams are dashed and after feeding her ice-cream for a bit, he starts letting it drip onto her body. Ana reacts with the kind of intelligent thought we’ve all learned to expect from her, “Oh…it’s cold.”
Post-coitus, Christian invites Ana to his father’s summer party. She thinks she’s got nothing to wear, but it turns out Christian has saved all the clothes he bought for her. Aw. Ana seems annoyed by this but doesn’t explain why, and then tells us she doesn’t want to fight with him right then. Hookay.
Ana has a nightmare about the creepy girl who approached Ana outside of the office. It’s short, so I’ll share the whole thing:
The girl who looks like me is standing outside SIP. Hang on—she is me. I am pale and unwashed, and all my clothes are too big; I’m staring at her, and she’s wearing my clothes—happy, healthy.
“What do you have that I don’t?” I ask her.
“Who are you?”
“I’m nobody . . . Who are you? Are you nobody, too . . . ?”
“Then there’s a pair of us—don’t tell, they’d banish us, you know . . .” She smiles, a slow, evil grimace that spreads across her face, and it’s so chilling that I start to scream.
There’s a footnote explaining that “I’m nobody…who are you?” is the first line of an Emily Dickinson poem.
They’ll banish us? James writes absolutely terrible dreams because she tries so hard to make them laden with meaning.
Christian wakes Ana up from her nightmare, so Ana explains what happened. Christian admits he knows who this girl is, and predictably gets weird and uncomfortable. He reveals it’s Leila, the ex-sub. “The girl who put ‘Toxic’ on your iPod,” Ana says, reminding us of that very significant revelation.
Apparently, Christian left Georgia early to go deal with this Leila person. While he was in Georgia, she showed up at his apartment and “made a haphazard attempt to open a vein.” Mrs. Jones got Leila to a hospital, but she discharged herself before Christian got there. Stranger yet, Leila has been married for the past couple years (post-Christian), but left her husband four months ago. He’s not sure why she’s chosen now so have this mental breakdown about their relationship that wasn’t, and even her family has lost track of her. So there ya go.
In typical Christian fashion, he holds some information back and then distracts Ana with sex. Thankfully, this sex happens off-screen. Then they wake up and have more sex that isn’t described to us. Aw, thank you, James!
Later, Ana agrees to start working out with a personal trainer so she can keep up with Christian in his playroom. “He looks like he’s won the lottery, though Christian’s probably never even bought a ticket—he has no need.” You know, there’s no reason to explain a saying like this. I would never be like, “Carla looks happy as a clam, though she’s never actually been a clam.”
Then Christian tells her that Taylor brought the Audi (the really nice car Christian gave Ana for her graduation present) to her apartment already. Ana gets mad and tries to give Christian money for the car. I’d actually be interested in these arguments if I believed they would go somewhere and Ana wouldn’t just cave five seconds later and start reminding us how hot Christian is, which makes his behavior forever excusable.
But wait. There’s more. So Ana rips up the check that Christian gave her after he sold her old car. Then Christian makes a phone call to deposit twenty-four thousand dollars into her account. Which raises the question of how Christian knows her account number.
“I know everything about you, Anastasia.”
This. Is. So. Terrifying. I don’t care how hot this man is, I simply don’t. He is frightening.
Poll time.
Take Our PollThey were GOING to have sex, but he was out of condoms. Trick question, bitches.
Ana needs a hair cut, so the logical solution is to take her to a salon owned by none other than Christian himself! There, The Evil Cougar/Mrs. Robinson/Elena shows up because she’s a part owner! I’m not, not intrigued, and Ana is totally pissed, so it’s a win!
The general theme of this book seems to be Christian’s Past. Interesting, interesting.