Well, I spent my Valentine’s Day eating pizza with another single friend and watching movie adaptations of Oscar Wilde plays. It was pretty great and now having done that, I’m not sure what people are actually supposed to do with that holiday.
Anyway, some of you guys left Ariel some really nice, thoughtful comments on her post yesterday where she talked about her personal life a bit. It’s great to know we have such awesome readers! Ariel and I were talking about this yesterday and wanted to share something amazing that happened with you.
Chapter Fifteen
So Eva’s still dealing with how Gideon broke things off with her aka Eva won’t stop being melodramatic.
How deep could a love affair get if you didn’t know the darkest recesses of your lover’s soul? That was the dilemma I’d faced with Gideon.
She goes on like this – the deep, contemplative thoughts about the true nature of love – for a whole paragraph a couple times a page throughout this whole chapter. It’s about as grueling and meandering as you’d expect. Good thing you guys aren’t actually reading it! And I’m reading it for you! Yep, this is an even trade!
Eva stops being deep long enough to talk to Cary about his new, high-profile modeling gig.
“You know how it is with male models—we’re tossed around like condoms at an orgy.”
Yes, I know exactly what that’s like.
Eva then calls her real dad. Maybe he has a real name, I have no idea.
“Hey, Chris insists he saw you on television the other day. Some cable channel, celebrity gossip thing. The guys won’t leave me alone about it.”
Oh my goodness, I love this. The dad’s friends are teasing him about his daughter’s high-profile love life. This is hilarious! Like “Nyeh! Your daughter’s famous! NEENER NEENER.”
“So you’re not dating one of the richest men in America?”
Oh, Eva’s real dad, you provide some great perspective on how stupid this novel is! Please come back more often.
Cary and Eva get ready to go to the garden party/music label rock star gathering/I am suspicious this is even remotely realistic event. Despite Gideon breaking up with her, Eva thinks it’s fine to go to this party hosted by his family that she hasn’t met yet because Gideon won’t be there? Cary is sad.
“Trey didn’t call last night,” he muttered. “He said he would. […] Trey’s not flaky like the others I’ve dated. He wouldn’t have forgotten to call, which means he just doesn’t want to.”
“The rat bastard.”
Just so we’re clear on this, Cary, the character we were initially told was gay but is bisexual, is dating a man named Trey who he thinks he’s falling in love with, despite Cary cheating on him by having sex with random women. Regularly. We’re supposed to be upset with Trey. Just… just try to do that, okay? Your job as a reader/possible crazy person.
So they go to the party and Eva meets all of Gideon’s family, who act like they’re meeting their son’s girlfriend. Even though Gideon has broken up with Eva. And Gideon isn’t there. Nobody acts like this is weird.
“I can see why Gideon is so taken with you. Your eyes are a stormy gray, yet they’re so clear and direct. Quite the most beautiful eyes I think I’ve ever seen, aside from my wife’s.”
I flushed. “Thank you.”
Even when literally everyone says something like that and it gets weirder. It gets worse when – SURPRISE OF SURPRISES – Gideon shows up! He’s super mad at Eva for showing up when she hurt him so bad, so he… takes her in the house to have sex?
“Shut your damned mouth.” He caught me by the elbows and shook me so hard my teeth snapped together. “Just shut up and let me talk.”
I slapped him hard enough to turn his head. “Don’t touch me.”
With a growl, Gideon hauled me into him and kissed me hard, bruising my lips. His hand was in my hair, fisting it roughly, holding me in place so I couldn’t turn away. I bit the tongue he thrust aggressively into my mouth, then his lower lip, tasting blood, but he didn’t stop. I shoved at his shoulders with everything I had, but I couldn’t budge him.
This is actually the worst thing I have ever read.
I gasped and tried to recoil, but there was nowhere to go. Not with the door at my back and a grimly determined Gideon in front, one hand keeping me pinned while the other lifted my left leg over his shoulder, opening me to his ardent mouth.
This is Gideon’s attempt to make amends with the girl he just broke up with, who has opened up to him about being a rape victim. And it works?
“I’m barely surviving it now. I’ve crawled through the last four days of my life. Another week, a month . . . It’ll break me to give you up.”
Okay. Fuck trying to make sense of Eva’s character. Here’s a few hilarious descriptions of Gideon’s penis.
Gideon battered my tender sex with that brutally thick column of rigid flesh
Titillating.
Then he ripped open his button fly and pulled his big, beautiful penis out
Okay. What makes a penis beautiful? Everybody I know is perplexed by this one. I’ve shown this passage to a ton (a ton) of my friends and nobody has any idea what qualities constitute beauty in a penis.
But Is It Better Than Fifty Shades of Grey?
This is really, really uncomfortable to read. Even if Gideon has a beautiful penis.
The Winner This Round: Fifty Shades of Grey