I was really excited this week watching Parks and Recreation because a character on the show was reading Fifty Shades, except she was actually totally into it. I was hoping she’d be like, “This is actually not at all sexy. I could write better erotica.”
Also, the other day my therapist told me I should write erotica after I ranted about how terrible this book is (I was discussing the blog). I simply do not have the time for that. But I guess if I could make a shit ton of money…or maybe I’ll just make a bonus post where I actively try to write something less sexy than this book. I’ll call it, “Ariel Writes Even Worse Erotica than Fifty Shades.”
Chapter 12
So Evil Cougar shows up and says she had no idea Ana was going to be there because Christian doesn’t usually have company during the week. She’s got an issue she wants to discuss. I’m totally with Ana on her annoyance about this. Go away, Evil Cougar, seriously! I hope the problem she needs to talk to Christian about is that she has crabs or something.
Cougar reveals she’s being blackmailed, and this is Ana’s reaction:
Holy shit. Not what I expected out of her mouth. Christian stiffens. Has someone found out about her penchant for beating and fucking underage boys? I suppress my revulsion, and a fleeting thought about chickens coming home to roost crosses my mind. My subconscious rubs her hands together with ill-disguised glee. Good.
What do chickens have to do with this? Is this a saying I have somehow missed for my entire life? Maybe it’s a British thing that James assumed was universal? Seriously, what the fuck. I’m not even sure how to google this, because writing, “what does chickens coming home to roost mean?” would probably just bring up results about actual chickens actually roosting.
We don’t get any details about who exactly is blackmailing Cougar, and eventually Ana excuses herself from the room. Don’t worry, she doesn’t go far enough that she can’t overhear Cougar and Christian discussing Ana. They talk about how awesome she is and how good for Christian she is. Cougar goes on and on about how she doesn’t want to see Christian get hurt, but she’s happy he finally fell in love. She wants him to explain their past relationship to Ana so she doesn’t hate her, but then she agrees to leave Ana alone already.
After Cougar leaves, Ana asks Christian to tell her about their past relationship, and his response is:
“Why the fuck do you want to know about her? We had a very longstanding affair, she beat the shit out of me often, and I fucked her in all sorts of ways you can’t even imagine, end of story.”
Whelp. I’m uncomfortable. And Ana feels bad she pissed Christian off. Christian does calm down, though, and explain a few things. I get Ana’s stance on the matter, but I can also understand Christian’s readiness to defend something that he believes helped him. I ain’t gonna judge. He explains he loves Ana differently/more than he ever loved Cougar, that Cougar helped Christian realize this and encouraged him to pursue it, and that he values their friendship.
The conversation ends, and Christian says he’s going to do some work. Then he gets bitchy about Ana leaving work without telling Sawyer, Christian’s security guy. Then he’s all, “Are we going to fight about this too?” Ana’s like, “Um…thought we were communicating, but okay.” True life. A lot of guys I’ve been involved with perceive every conversation where you’re on different pages as a fight when really you’re just trying to figure out where they’re coming from and reach a compromise. Frustrating.
Just when you thought things couldn’t get any more exciting, Ana decides to call Ray, who is possibly the most boring character in the book. But first, a poll:
“Hope all is well with Christian,” he says casually, and I know he’s fishing for information but doesn’t really want to know.
If he doesn’t really want to know, he’s not fishing for information! Here’s the rest of the riveting conversation:
“Yeah. We’re cool.” Sort of, and I’m moving in with him. Though we haven’t discussed a timetable.
“Love you, Dad.”
“Love you, too, Annie.”
I love how whenever James has no idea what to do to fill time she just has Ana call one of her parents and have a pointless conversation. After this, Ana goes to read in Christian’s library and falls asleep until Christian comes and carries her to bed.
Oh, Christ, not again. More of Christian’s fucking piano playing. God, I can’t take any more of this chapter. And now they’re having sex again! Christian tugs on Ana’s pubic hair through her nightgown.
Why is this happening to me today? I’m too hungover and tired to read about pubic hair being tugged on!
Christian has Ana lay down on top of the piano while he goes down on her. I just realized I’m reading an “erotic” sex scene in a crowded library and feel no shame because of how unsexy I find this. Nobody getting wet up in here.
The next part of the chapter is kind of hard to explain and very unfulfilling. Not that this book is ever really fulfilling. Basically Ana starts to ask Christian why he gets mad when she talks about Elena, but then they end up just flirting. Then she asks if he only had sex on weekends with his subs, and he says that’s why he works out so much. Cool story, bro.
Then, Cougar calls and we only hear Christian’s side of the conversation, but it sounds like the blackmail was a joke from her current sub? I’m not sure, and Christian doesn’t explain, so moving on.
There are a series of e-mails between our heroes, and the subject lines are as follows:
1) Sunrise
2) Sundown
3) Wet Hardware (?)
4) Giggling–and wet too (ew, at least she’s not damp, though.)
5) Do I have to?
Don’t worry, you’re not missing out on anything. It’s what they always flirt about.
In creepy boss news, even though Jack knows about Christian and Ana, he seems more determined than ever to bone Ana. I mean, who wouldn’t want a piece of that, amiright?
“Coffee, please.” His voice is low and husky as if he’s asking for something else.
He’s asking for your vagina, Ana.
In other news, Kate’s brother Ethan is arriving to stay at Ana’s apartment. Ana decides that Ethan should come out to dinner with her and Christian. We get a whole scene of Ana e-mailing Christian about it. Why can’t this shit happen off-screen?
When Ethan shows up to get the keys from Ana at work, one of Ana’s colleagues, Claire, says this:
“There’s a real cute guy in reception to see you. We must go out for drinks sometime, Ana. You sure know some hunky guys,” she hisses conspiratorially through the phone.
Hisses was a really weird word choice for this. Wouldn’t she be whispering? Maybe Claire is just really angry Ana “sure does know some hunky guys.”
Apparently, after being in Barbados with Elliot and Kate, Ethan too has adopted “Laters” into his vocabulary, saying it, “grows on you.” It’s really, really not that distinctive of a word/saying.
Christian picks Ana up, and they head to her apartment to pick Ethan up. Upon entering the apartment, Ana finds Leila holding a gun.
Holy Shit.
Donna loved Twilight, of course she would also love 50 Shades. I ain’t mad at her though, bad lit is just Donna’s thing.
And chickens coming home to roost is fairly common saying or at least I thought so until this post. It’s kind of a “what goes around, comes around” thing.
Chuck is right about Donna’s reading choices in Parks and Rec and the “chicken” saying as well. Also, I continue to be disturbed by the “Cougar” and her involvement in Christian’s life. It’s almost motherly in the current iteration and that makes it doubly creepy knowing their past relationship.
Chicken’s coming home to roost is a very common saying.
Tugging on pubic hair is icky and it hurts, and not in a sexy “ouch, that hurts so good” way. Just in a “wtf are you DOING” way.
Chickens coming home to roost is an idiom. A really old idiom that my grandmother actually used to use. Which is the only reason I know it. I think it’s a southern idiom too. It basically means what goes around comes around. Things you’ve done bad in the past are now coming back to haunt you.
It’s a weird ass thing for a college student to suddenly say out of the blue. What goes around comes around would have been easier.
**The notion of bad deeds, specifically curses, coming back to haunt their originator is long established in the English language and was expressed in print as early as 1390, when Geoffrey Chaucer used it in The Parson’s Tale. {…}The allusion that was usually made was to a bird returning to its nest at nightfall, which would have been a familiar one to a medieval audience.
Other allusions to unwelcome returns were also made, as in the Elizabethan play The lamentable and true tragedie of Arden of Feversham, 1592:
Chickens didn’t enter the scene until the 19th century when a fuller version of the phrase was used as a motto on the title page of Robert Southey’s poem The Curse of Kehama, 1810:
That came from http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/chickens-come-home-to-roost.html The prase was also made pretty well known in the 60s, notably by Malcolm X. When questioned about what he thought of President Kennedy’s death, it was Malcolm X’s answer that the Presidents death was a case of “chickens coming home to roost” — that the violence that Kennedy had failed to stop had come back to him. Consequently, the speech Malcolm X delivered prior to this question is sometimes called “The Chickens Come Home To Roost” speech.
We do still use it here in the South, though no one I know who is Ana’s age does. They usually just say, “what goes around comes around, bitches.”
Just a little bit from my Inner (Research) Goddess. 🙂