Darker Chapter 10 (Part 2): They Do The Weird Stuff

Guys, did you know we’re reading the last chapter of Darker? Did you know it is exhaustingly long? We’re gonna be reading it for a while. 

Previously, Christian survived a plane crash, Ana agreed to marry him, and Ana’s birth control has kicked in so Christian doesn’t have to wear condoms anymore. You might think that last thing wouldn’t be worth including in a topline summary, but clearly you haven’t really gotten in Christian Grey’s head.

Darker: Chapter 10 (Part 2)

SATURDAY, JUNE 18, 2011

Christian wakes up reflecting on the contenting (?) dream he had.

I wake, startled by my dream. But, I’m left with a sense of contentment, when normally I’m terrified of my dreams.
The Anastasia Steele effect.

The Anastasia Steele effect is an aspect of chaos theory that a really boring person can trip into a rich, emotionally detached asshole’s office and cause a tornado a few weeks later. And that the asshole will throw all of his self-worth into this boring person.

Christian looks at Ana’s “yes” keychain again and reflects on how she said he didn’t have “the most romantic proposal”. He thinks, “She’s right. She deserves better.” It’s probably not supposed to be ominous, but I read this and my eye twitched.

He gets out of his bedroom and overhears Ana and José talking. Ana insists that she really loves Christian, and we get some of the same dialogue we already read in Fifty Shades Darker but with Christian occasionally interjecting with comments about how José is an asshole. I have no idea how it took E L James so fucking long to write Darker. 

Christian hates José. Christian enters the room and he and José have an unimaginably boring conversation about fishing. Christian now thinks maybe José isn’t such a bad guy after all.

“My brother Elliot and I landed a thirty-four-pound steelhead once.”
“Thirty-four pounds?” José says, and he seems genuinely impressed. […]
“Thanks. So, where do you like to fish?”
“All around the Pacific Northwest. Dad’s favorite is the Skagit.”
“Really, that’s my dad’s favorite, too.” I’m surprised yet again. […] Maybe this guy’s not such a dick.

And that, in a nutshell, is the ballad of José Rodriguez, only person of color in Fifty Shades.

We talk about the upcoming Mariners game—he’s a fan—and I realize that José and I have much in common.

Don’t forget that José is such a deeply undeveloped character that he’s obviously only in this story so E L James can shit on Team Jacob.

Ana gives Christian his first birthday present, and it’s a solar-powered toy helicopter. Christian gets a flashback to a Christmas as a kid for no goddamn reason. Real talk: when people ask me if I can think of anything I genuinely like about Fifty Shades, I say that I do like that Ana manages to find very thoughtful gifts for a man who has already bought himself basically anything. Realer talk: I probably like this more than Christian Grey does.

I watch the rotors start to spin under the warm rays of the sun. “Look at that. What we can already do with this technology.”

Here’s really just here to ramble about technical details that have absolutely nothing to do with the story.

I hold the helicopter at eye level, watching how easily solar energy is converted to mechanical energy.

Really here for technical details.

The challenge is how to store this energy. Graphene is the way to go…but can we build efficient enough batteries?

Realest talk: the rewrites from Christian Grey’s perspective continually prove that E L James does not understand what her readers see in Christian Grey.

Anyway, you might have heard how Fifty Shades is a story that’s full of kinky kinky sexytimes. You might have. If you’ve been following along with our summary of Darker, you certainly wouldn’t have any idea that it does. And, thus, we have arrived at one of the few scenes of anything remotely resembling kink in the second book in this series, as Ana gives Christian his second, more symbolic present: stuff from his playroom that she’s interested in experimenting with. You’d think this, of all goddamn things, might finally be worth reading from Christian Grey’s perspective, but you read this and tell me E L James didn’t obviously try harder with the description of that goddamn toy helicopter.

I rip open the tissue that conceals the box’s contents and retrieve an eye mask. Okay, she wants to be blindfolded. Next are some nipple clamps. Oh, not these. They’re vicious. Not beginner level. Beneath the clamps is a butt plug, but this one is way too big. She’s enclosed my iPod, too, which pleases me. She must like my music choices.

WOW SOME DEEP INSIGHTS INTO CHRISTIAN GREY’S PSYCHE HERE. “A blindfold. Guess she wants to be blindfolded.” Yeah, no shit, Sherlock. You wanna add anything to the story at any point in time? We read Fifty Shades Darker. We know what happens, we know how Ana feels about it, and to a certain extent we already know how Christian feels about it (not like the dude ever shuts up). This is a fairly pivotal scene, since they’ve spent the entire book not using the sex dungeon after their mishaps that resulted in them breaking up for a few days. We gotta go deeper into what’s going through his head.

Is she doing this because she thinks I want to? Is what we do not enough for her? Am I ready for this?
“You’re sure?” I prompt.

But you already know it’s gonna come up spectacularly short.

We could have some fun.

Of course, some of this is the hilariously bad E L James writing we know and love:

Fuck.
She might as well be addressing my cock.

But even by E L James’ standards, somehow one of the series’ kinkiest scenes almost seems like she’s trying to make Christian incredibly boring.

It’s a little loud so I lower the volume a tad.

Christian basically re-describes a scene we’ve already read before, practically without ever reacting to how he feels about it. And, sure, it might be technically better written than in Fifty Shades Darker if not just because we don’t have any of Ana’s “holy crap!”s, “Ah!”s, or “and then I detonated”s, but Christian somehow barely feels like he’s even in this scene.

She moans, and I gather one of the nipple clamps in one hand. Trailing my lips from her throat toward her breast, I stop and carefully attach a clamp.
Her garbled groan is my reward as I bring her trapped nipple to full attention with my lips. She writhes under my touch, shifting from side to side, and I clamp the remaining nipple. Ana’s groan is just as loud this time. “Feel it,” I insist, and I lean back to take in the beautiful sight.
“Give me this.” I remove the vibrator from her mouth […] “Hush now.” I stand and slide the vibrator inside her. Capturing her face with my hands, I kiss her, then click the small remote.
When the vibrator starts, she gasps and jolts up on her knees. “Ah!”

Over the course of this scene we get light bondage, blindfolding, a vibrator, and this motherfucker’s even got a pinkie in Ana’s ass, and somehow he doesn’t react to any of it anywhere nearly as enthusiastically as he did to a fucking solar-powered toy helicopter.

Could I be any more content?

Ok, Chandler Bing.

Then again, I guess it’s not like appropriate reactions have ever been Christian Grey’s strong suit.

“I think you’re trying to kill me.”
“Death by orgasm. There are worse ways to go.”
Like plunging to your death in Charlie Tango.

Harsh vibe, dude.