Don’t Worry, All is Well Again…Kind of?: Bared to You Chapter 10

Because of the e-book, I have finally understood that there is a free kindle app on my iPhone! Yes. I purchased a copy of my own e-book. To be fair, though, Matt’s writing is in there too, so it’s not like I’m just re-reading my own stuff over and over again. Okay. It’s lame, but damn I was excited!

Also, did everyone see that really scathing review where the person called me Matt’s insipid female sidekick? How dare he! We are business partners. Oh, and for some reason he was really angry that we’re white and go to college. GOD WE ARE SUCH TERRIBLE AWFUL PEOPLE! For some reason, he also thinks we have lots of money…it’s unclear why. I don’t post pictures of me cuddling with diamonds on here, do I?

Sardonically seemed very convinced that we were confused by this smut and that it was the first time we’d ever encountered erotic fanfiction. I can’t speak for Matt, but I was aware of regular erotica and fanfiction erotica long before Fifty Shades of Grey ever came out. Hey, guess what? There’s really well-written, awesome stuff out there that should be getting this kind of attention! There’s nothing confusing about the sex in this book–in fact, I’ve seen kinkier stuff on True Blood. It’s the popularity of this book that confuses me.

Here’s the biting social commentary Sardonically really wanted: just because you say things like, “Man, you can’t trust what white college students say because they are lucky they are in college andmore privileged than some other people!” Doesn’t make you culturally savvy, it makes you a dick who makes assumptions without any real foundation. But what do I know, I’m just an insipid female sidekick =(. I’ll just get back to saying things like, “Look how bad this passage is!” and move on very quickly.

Chapter 10

Last week, Eva and Gideon had sex in a hotel room (in a hotel owned by Gideon himself), and everything was great! Until Eva saw the bedside drawer full of sex toys and realized that they’d just gone up to this room without making sure it was vacant first. She quickly realized this was clearly not the first time Gideon had used this room for a sexy encounter, and ran away.

Eva is really embarrassed to walk past the hotel manager, who I’m sure is actually more fixated on what shows are currently recorded on his DVR and not what went down in Gideon’s sex-den. It would have been really hilarious if that bitchy woman Magdalena, who was featured a couple chapters ago, was standing in the lobby doing a slow clap and saying, “Told you, you were just a walking dick motel.”

Alas, that’s not the case, and Eva just walks aimlessly and thinks thinky thoughts. One of which is actually pretty astute. As Matt pointed out in his last Bared to You post, Eva actually was pretty self-aware about her decision to flee and how that went against what she’d learned in therapy. She continues this trend when she realizes that perhaps both she and Gideon are simply falling into their own established patterns because they’re afraid.  This realization and understanding saddens her even more, and she ends up in a pizza place, drinking wine and eating pizza while crying. Super uncomfortable for everyone involved, I’m sure.

Eva pulls out her phone to contact her therapist and arrange video-chat appointments until she finds a new therapist in New York, and that’s when she notices a ton of missed calls and an apology text from Gideon. Eva caves and answers his next call. Noticing a pattern? Hasn’t this happened in pretty much every chapter since the book’s start?

She doesn’t know where she is but manages to vaguely describe the way she went to get there, and two seconds later Gideon materializes. I hope they kiss and everyone around them starts clapping again (in case you missed it, that actually happened). I just want more clapping in this book apparently.

Instead, Gideon hugs Eva and apologizes, saying he also would have gotten upset if she’d brought him someplace she reserved for “fucking other men.” Anyway, he wants to take her back to his real place, and apparently he’s never brought a woman there at all. God, you guys, he’s letting her inside of both his house and his heart already!

Why does another staple of romantic fiction seem to be that the female protagonist has to describe in detail every inch of the male protagonist’s office/house/apartment/hotel room etc. I understand describing his body to us in detail because that reinforces the erotic aspect. I don’t particularly care about Gideon’s rugs, his artwork, the wood his furniture is made out of. Basically, the kind of wood Eva should be describing to us is Gideon’s personal wood, not the wood his dresser is made out of.

I joined Gideon in the living room, and we sat on the floor at the coffee table to eat the prized caviar with mini toast and crème fraîche. We watched a rerun of a New York–set police procedural that just happened to include a scene filmed on the street in front of the Crossfire.

Omg omg omg. Do you guys think they’re watching Law and Order: SVU? I would like this book 1000 times better if they were!

Eva and Gideon don’t have sex that night, and Eva asserts that she enjoys the fact that they just spent time together without sex. On the one hand, I’m happy we didn’t have to read every boring detail of their night; on the other hand, telling us they watched a show together (SVU??), witnessing one semi-joke Gideon made about how it’s cool to see his building on TV but it’s annoying when the area’s blocked off, doesn’t really convince me of their epic compatibility or whatever.

Bared to You: Look! My characters do more then just have sex! They watch television together and exchange a line of dialogue that isn’t about their relationship!

Eva falls asleep only to wake up to Gideon having a nightmare later saying, “Don’t touch me.” I’m sorry, I know I keep pointing out the billion similarities between this and Fifty Shades, but come on. I’m not saying no other story ever can feature a male character that suffers from nightmares, but Christian’s nightmares and issues with touching are such a big deal in Fifty Shades that it’s impossible for me not to point it out. I wonder why this trope is so popular. Is it the idea of these men being in such pain but only able to express it in sleep because of Societies Pressures to Be a Man, or is it tapping into a desire in women to be saviors? Is is the vulnerability aspect? I’m not entirely sure. Probably a combination of all of these things.

The big difference, I’m guessing, will be that Eva and Gideon can bond over their shared traumatic pasts, while in Fifty Shades Ana’s innocence and purity seems to have played a large role in “saving” Christian.

Gideon is having horrible nightmares about someone touching him and pain, so I think it’s probably pretty important that Eva tells us, “Stilling abruptly, he fell to his back, tense and expectant. His chest heaved with panting breaths. His cock was hard and lay heavily along his belly.” Maybe this will actually end up being a really interesting and sensitive portrayal of someone who experienced sexual abuse and also feels guilt because they did experience some pleasure from it? Here’s to hoping!

Is that biting social commentary, Sardonically? Oh sorry, I’m white, female college student, so I’m not sure I can have opinions on anything that’s not clothing or caviar.

But then things get a bit strange, in my opinion:

“What’s wrong?” he asked gruffly, pushing up onto one elbow. “You okay?”

“I want you.” I stretched out against him, aligning my bare body to his. Pressing my face into his damp throat, I sucked gently on his salty skin. I knew from my own nightmares that being held and loved could push the specters back into the closet for a little while.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but if someone was having a nightmare saying, “Don’t touch me,” and expressing that they were in pain, I can understand trying to make him feel loved and safe, but I don’t understand trying to initiate sex right away. If I was having a nightmare about eating rancid meat and then getting food poisoning, I wouldn’t wake up wanting to eat a giant steak (at least I don’t think so, anyway.)

But I guess it’s fine because they have sex, and he says he’s happy she’s there? Again, sorry, there was nothing laughable in this sex scene. It was really short, and the lines it did have were well-written. God damn it, book, give me something to work with like, “detonate” or “his penis was divine” or a tampon being ripped from a vagina! You’re being too normal.

They stop by Eva’s apartment, then head to work together, and Eva apparently has a gift for Gideon. She didn’t even tell us about it! Gee, thanks, Eva, I thought we were supposed to be in your head.

Gideon stared down at the framed photograph in complete silence. It was a novelty frame depicting die-cut images of things relating to graduation, including a digital clock face that read 3:00 a.m. The picture was of me posing on Coronado Beach in a coral bikini with a big floppy straw hat—I was tanned, happy, and blowing a kiss to Cary, who’d playacted the role of a high-fashion photographer by calling out ridiculous encouragements. Beautiful, dahling. Show me sassy. Show me sexy. Brilliant. Show me catty . . . rawr . . 

Does everyone go around giving pictures like this to someone they’ve slept with three or four times? Is this some sort of social convention I’ve been unaware of for years? I thought I read enough girly blogs that I’d be aware of this kind of thing.

Gideon seems to appreciate the picture and even brings it into work with him. I guess the big question is whether he’s going to put it on his desk or just use it in private to masturbate. I just can’t keep up with all the twists and turns of this book.

At work, Eva doesn’t actually do much work. Instead, Cary calls and tell her he’s landed a good modelling gig, and then Eva checks her google alerts on Gideon’s name. She discovers an article about their public kiss, and apparently a source revealed that she’s the “significant woman” in Gideon’s life. Things move so quickly in these books; I really don’t think more than a week could have gone by in this book!

The chapter just ends with Eva saying, “Oh, crap,” after reading that short article, and it’s incredibly unclear to me if that’s a sort of awed “oh, crap” or a “this is bad” situation. I wish we could consult with our “crap” expert, Anastasia Steele, but she’s still on her honeymoon with Christian. Guess we’ll all have to wait to find out the nature of this “oh, crap” until next time, folks!