Ara: Chapter 6 - WHY GOD WHY!?!?

....I don't see how Ana has survived to twenty four.  Seriously.  I don't.  How the fuck has she not been horribly murdered somewhere in backwoods Washington State?  And where do I file a complaint that this hasn't happened? Is there a predators' union or something?

We pick up in the immediate aftermath of the 'elevator kiss' that Ana describes as a 'outburst of passion that exploded'.  Strike one: if this is the first time Ana has been kissed and actually enjoyed the experience, then this really is not being portrayed in the text.  This is in fact giving me flashbacks to Jose's attempted kiss because there's nothing about why Ana is so affected, just a lot of purple prose to assure us that she is.  Also, if the kiss is that sudden overwhelming passion, why are they both able to stroll casually out to the SUV?  In fact the first two lines in this chapter are to tell us that Christian owns a black Audi SUV which is a 'beast of a car'.  Ha, ha, ha- bullshit.  I have seen Audi SUVs and while they are large and ugly cars by European standards, they would look ridiculous beside the average American pickup truck. Also, while Audi vehicles have a long tradition of being the dickhead penis-compensation-car of the well-off in the UK/Ireland, they are not high-testosterone cars.  They are also low-end luxury cars, the kind bought by middle managers with families, not rich tycoons.

If this is desperate, urgent passion, I dread to think what their relationship is going to be like when the ardour cools.

By the sixth line, Ana has relegated the kiss to 'mythical, Arthurian Legend, Lost City of Atlantis status'.  That's a whole lot of repression, right there! Seriously, Ana should still be feeling the tingle in her scalp from having her hair pulled.  It's been THREE MINUTES!  This is her first 'proper no-holds-barred' kiss?  The first time I was kissed, I put more time into thinking about it than Ana does and I was 12!

Also, Ana, if a guy backs you up against a wall, kisses the shit out you and pulls your hair, I think you are more than entitled to talk about it!  PARTICULARLY if you're GETTING INTO HIS CAR TWO MINUTES LATER!!  Seriously, he kissed you.  You are part of this kiss and if you want to discuss it and he doesn't, your next step should be to find someone who does want to discuss the whole 'kissing/hair-pulling/

stalking' issue.  Might I suggest the police?

But rather than don her big-girl pants and address the myth in the room, Ana is distracted by Christian's choice in music.  (Okay, I'm starting to see how it took Ana six years to get through college and I'm betting, she relied heavily on Kate's notes because Ana's attention span would have made lectures so much fun.)

Also, Christian's choice of music? Opera.  Because god forbid we should lose any opportunity to emphasis Christian's stereotypical super-villain checklist.  I have a sneaking suspicion that the only reason Lakmé was chosen is that it has an all-girl duet.  There's nothing in the opera's plot (about imperialistic bastards and 'dishonoured' women) to relate to Christian's character or give us any insight into his motivation.  It was chosen because it sounds pretty.

Oh, and apparently the music also seduces Ana.  For a prude, she really is easily seduced.  She asks if Christian likes classical music, hoping for a 'rare insight' into his personal preferences.  If only she had had the opportunity to ask him questions in some kind of ...interview-like session before we were faced with this information!

Christian's taste in music is 'eclectic' and it depends on his mood. He names two specific ends of his musical spectrum - Kings of Leon and Thomas Tallis. He volleys the question back and Ana's response is '"Me too. Though I don't know who Thomas Tallis is."'

..........do I really, really need to point out the problem here?  Ana's tastes in music include a composer who she's NEVER HEARD OF but who must be awesome because the guy she's crushing on likes him!  That's the sort of bullshit that the girls I grew up with considered to be immature when we were 13 years old!

Christian gets two cryptic phone calls - one from a rasping gentleman called Welch who has 'the information you require' and one from Andrea to tell him the NDA is ready.  Honestly, I read the first exchange with Welch as an indicator that Christian is some sort of crime boss.  Christian also doesn't bother with even cursory manners and Ana, in an all too brief moment of sanity, thinks that she's glad she doesn't work for him because he's rude on the phone.  Not that this stops her from wanting to sleep with him.

Then Christian's brother Elliot calls and literally the first question out of his mouth is 'D'you get laid?'.  For those of you that drowned your memories of the previous chapter in copious amounts of alcohol, I remind you that when Elliot last saw Ana, they were on the dance floor, Ana was so drunk she had thrown up and she passed out cold in front of him.  Elliot's brother then took her home, removed her pants and SLEPT IN THE BED BESIDE HER after ordering sexy lingere in her exact size.  Christian is adamant that nothing happened but if I was in Ana's shoes, I would be seriously doubting him right now.

Christian, it should be noted here, doesn't deny that he got laid.  He doesn't react with horror or disgust but resigned amusement that Elliot is talking so crudely when Christian has him on speaker.  A genuine knight in shining armour or decent human being would respond with horror or outrage or at least remind Elliot that he only took Ana home because he wanted to be sure she was okay.  Not Christian.

He also greets Ana by her preferred nickname and tells her that he's heard a lot about her in a husky voice.  Ana assumes that Kate has been talking about her.

Okay, hold up, I'm not savvy with one-night stands being asexual and all but Kate was tipsy, breaking out all her good moves and, if Ana-the-prude is to be believed, one short step from climbing Elliot like a tree right there on the dance floor.  The assumption was that Kate and Elliot were off to have athletic sex as soon and as often as possible.  At what point exactly did Kate pause in the wild-monkey-sex and start talking about her room-mate?

Honestly, based on what we know, I think Elliot's been hearing about Ana from Christian which is a whole other level of creepy.

Christian is also dropping Ana off and picking Elliot up from her apartment apparently and he hangs up.  There is a bitchy little back and forth about why Christian won't use Ana's nickname - the one EVERYONE ELSE she's close to uses - which Christian doesn't actually explain himself in.

Then Christian casually informs her that what happened in the elevator will only happen again if 'it's premeditated'.  No! Really?  So the last time you were the elevator, you slipped and landed on her mouth?  KISSING IS BY ITS VERY NATURE PREMEDITATED, DICKWEED!  Also, bullshit that the elevator encounter wasn't premeditated.  You were drawing up paperwork in your head to let you do it!

Ana notices, in an aside, that despite her not telling him where she lives, Christian knows her address.  This is immediately ignored.  In women with functional senses of self-preservation, this is the point where they start pricing pepper-spray and tazers and buddy-systems.

Ana is too busy pouting that Christian has said he won't kiss her again.  Why can't she just kiss him?  I mean, unwanted sexual advances are absolutely to be avoided but given that he was practically gargling your tonsils a few minutes ago, I think he's on board here.  I don't get why Ana feels she has to wait for him to kiss her.  Grow a pair and kiss him if that's what you're so eager for!

And Kate of the bi-polar-friendship strikes again.  She hugs Ana and is hostile towards Christian.  If you didn't trust the guy making off with your UNCONSCIOUS room-mate/best friend, Kate, you shouldn't have prioritized your booty call over her safety!

We also learn that Elliot, who is Christian's adopted brother, is nothing like him.  Because god knows that living in the same house, sharing a childhood and all that have nothing to do with how you turn out and people don't ever have anything in common with the people they live with.....

He kisses Kate goodbye and Ana is mortified.  Because a kiss in the privacy of your own home with both sets of hands above the waist and a Hollywood-style dip is so much more scandalous than hair-pulling and stomach humping in a hotel elevator in the middle of the day.  Dear Ana, STOP BEING SUCH A FUCKING HYPOCRITE!

Also, Ana is jealous because Christian isn't kissing her like that.  (Again.  Big-girl Pants.  Don them!)

The brothers leave and Kate, displaying that most heinous of character traits - curiosity - asks if Ana slept with Christian.  Ana is immediately furious and tries to shut down any further questions.  She's also very nasty in her thoughts about Kate - who did sleep with the guy she went home with - using words like 'ensnared' to describe how Kate attracts men.  It comes across as spiteful and jealous but Ana claims to be happy when Kate tells her that she's seeing Elliot that evening.

I'm calling bullshit.

And I'm proven right because Ana immediately interjects that Christian is taking her to Seattle that evening.  Her crush/stalker is better than Kate's boyfriend, so there!  Kate asks if Ana's planning to sleep with him in Seattle and Ana says she might.  Kate also remarks that the first man Ana falls for is a billionaire and they laugh.  Then Ana tells Kate about the 'unexciting details' of her time with Christian.

Because I want there to be one person in this book who I don't want to kill with fire, I'm choosing to read that as Ana failing to mention the creepy, invasive behaviour on Christian's part.  Because if Kate hears half the things that Christian has pulled and her IMMEDIATE reaction is NOT 'Ana, that's not something he should have done' or 'Hon, you need to call the police!', then she's a shitty friend and should be left alone to die in a corner.

The paragraph about Ana's day at work is one of those crimes against the craft of writing.  Ana is busy but the day drags and she has to stay for two hours after the store closes doing mindless work which gives her too much time to think because she hasn't had a chance to think.  It's just....people don't work like that!  Long boring days and frantically busy periods of work don't work like that.

Then we get another contradictory narration; Kate puts a lot of work into getting Ana ready for her date with Christian because that's what men expect these days.  Ana has to convince her to do this because Kate doesn't like Christian.  Ana is glad she hasn't told Kate about the helicopter and promises to text when she gets to Seattle.  Because if Christian takes you somewhere else in his helicopter where there isn't reception, you're totally not going to be screwed and wind up a tragic statistic.

We also get the 'Jose issue'.  No, seriously, that's how Ana describes it.  The 'Jose issue'; because being sexually assaulted by a friend while drunk is just an issue.  Being trapped alone with a guy who refused to listen when you told him repeatedly that you didn't want this and who kissed you and might have done god knows what to you if your stalker hadn't stepped in less than twenty four hours ago merits eight short sentences.  One paragraph and Jose vanishes from Ana's thoughts like he never existed.

Ana says she's not going to answer his calls because '...I have decided to let him stew.  I'm still too angry with him.'

Ana would not know anger if it beat her up and stole her car.  Ana is planning to let the GUY WHO SEXUALLY ASSAULTED HER LESS THAN A DAY AGO 'stew' because she's 'too angry' to talk to him.  And apparently Kate knows that Jose assaulted Ana because she's been covering for Ana by being vague about where she is.

Okay, fuck you, Kate.  You are a shitty friend.

If, god forbid, I or one of my friends was sexually assaulted by someone we both knew, I would not be half-heartedly covering for their desire not to talk to their attacker.  I would be actively explaining (probably via percussive Morse Code) what a shitty thing the attacker had done and how very, very, very sorry they were going to be for what they'd done.  I would not be answering the phone to them except to tell them that they were a shitty person and should be ashamed.

Remember, this isn't an out of the blue thing; Ana says when she first mentions Jose that he's been failing to accept that Ana does not see him in a romantic/sexual life since they met in first year.  She says that they have had the 'let's be friends' talk multiple times and Jose STILL ASSAULTED HER!  This isn't a misunderstanding or an overreaction!  This is a guy who is not willing to take no for an answer despite being told multiple times to knock it off.  This is a rapist waiting to happen!

Kate should be being supportive and/or putting the fucker's knee-caps in!  Not being ' vague as to where [Ana is]'!

But Ana's not thinking about it either.  Ana's thinking about the vexatious question of paperwork because after dismissing the first guy to sexually assault you in the last day, clearly the natural thing is to fret about the OTHER guy who sexually assaulted you. 

....okay, deep breath.  I'm moving on from this before I explode with rage.

Ana is frustrated by the paperwork. Will she have to sign something or what? It's a contract.  Signing is generally expected of you, yes!  And Ana then leaps to the conclusion that paperwork = fucking and wonders if she's ready.  This is a valid concern so clearly.....yup, right on cue, Ana's 'inner goddess' (AKA Ana's deeply repressed libidio) pops up to demand that Ana stop thinking and start humping.

Ana's 'inner goddess' has apparently been ready to fuck for years and is even more ready to fuck Christian.  And because we can't mention how Ana is going to sleep with Christian without Ana mentioning how totally unworthy and unfuckable she is, she frets about how mousy she is and wonders what Christian could possibly see in her.

Right now?  My money is on a low-cost doormat.

Christian picks her up in the Audi - this time with bonus chauffeur! - and asks about her day.  He too has had a long day....hiking with his brother.  (Don't these guys need to sleep or eat or are they literally fucking machines?)  Christian holding Ana's hand is apparently enough to liquefy her ovaries.  Casual contact with Christian is apparently more than her hormones can take.

Ana is the female equivalent of a premature ejaculator, isn't she?

Also, for those who doubt me when I say that this writing is actually painful to read, consider this one sentence:

"The drive to the heliport is short and, before I know it, we arrive."

If you can explain to me exactly what the second half of that sentence achieves in terms of advancing the plot or deepening our understanding of the characters....well, you've probably been playing the 50 Shades drinking game and should be getting your stomach pumped.

Ana has a Pavlovian reaction to the elevator that they take up to the helicopter.  Apparently she's been thinking of the kiss all day and her boss had to shout at her on two separate occasions to get her attention.  (Why hasn't Ana been fired?)  She mentions an electrical attraction between them (and presumably the lift, given that the attraction wasn't there when they were in the equally enclosed car not two minutes before) and how it's 'enslaving' her.

The helicopter is - surprise! - a company helicopter and Ana wonders if this is misusing company property.  She doesn't actually ask and Christian loads her into the passenger seat and straps her in.  There is what I think is meant to be a bondage-lite interaction with the harness which just comes across as an uneasy cross between a technical manual and a 13 year old's LJ.

Christian then breaks out a lot of SERIOUSLY creepy 'Flirtation' about how Ana can't escape him and how he likes the harness and she's safe with him but only in the air.  In an established BDSM relationship, this could have been genuinely flirtatious banter but Ana doesn't miss a single opportunity to remind us that she's innocent and confused and doesn't understand.  This makes Christian's 'banter' sound a lot more like threats.

Remember, she's strapped into the cockpit of a helicopter under his control on top of a building that he owns, staffed by people in his employ.  Ana is literally powerless and frankly, should be remembering some vague but important appointment somewhere as far from Christian as she can get and as fast as she can go.

There's an info-dump to show that the author did her research (doubtful) and to mention that Christian's building has a helipad (presumably for ease of body disposal after his current stalkee is finished with).  Christian, in the most genuinely male action thus far, talks technical at Ana while she pervs on him and then has a mini-freakout about how she is totally and for real, no lie, going to lose her virginity tonight!

They talk a little more and Seattle appears which makes Ana think of Bladerunner which makes her think of Jose because it's his favourite filme which makes her feel guilty about not talking to him.  The same Jose who, in case you forgot, sexually assaulted her 24 hours ago.  But Ana is clearly the monster here for not calling him until tomorrow!


GRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!!!!!


Two more pages.  I can do this.......


And as they go to land, after nearly an hour in the air, Ana realizes that she's totally in Christian's power and goes weak at the knees.  Also, probably weak at the brain-stem too because she has ANOTHER freakout about how Christian couldn't possibly want her and how she's not what he wants and omg! Anxiety attack!

Christian gets them down alive (to my great disappointment) and performs his very first decent human action by telling Ana that she doesn't have to do anything she doesn't want to.  This would have carried more weight with me if you hadn't waited until after you flew her into a whole other city where she doesn't know anyone or have anywhere else to go if you throw her out and you hadn't spent the whole evening so far treating her like a prop rather than a person but okay, baby steps.

And Ana responds to this invitation to share her feelings by.....lying through her teeth.

She tells him that she never does anything she doesn't want to.  At this point in the book, I literally cannot think of one single thing that Ana has done that she actually wanted to do.  EVERY SINGLE ACTION ANA HAS TAKEN HAS BEEN FROM OBLIGATION, APATHY OR FEAR.  She has been worrying herself literally sick with doubts but as soon as she is given the chance to express those doubts, she denies everything.  SHE EVEN ADMITS TO HERSELF THAT SHE'S LYING HER ASS OFF.

Ana is trying to commit suicide by apathy.  There just isn't another explanation for this rampant stupidy.

We get a description of Christian's home which can be summarized as follows: "BIG! EXPENSIVE! LUXURIOUS! EXPENSIVE! HI-TECH! EXPENSIVE!  HAVE-I-MENTIONED-HOW-RICH-

CHRISTIAN-IS-ENOUGH-TIMES-YET?
!"

He offers Ana food and she declines, thinking that she's not hungry for food.  Which is surprisingly worldly for Ms Prudey McVirgin-Pants but whatever. This is followed by overt, heavy-handed references to Tess of the D'Ubervilles in which the author is purely being pretentious and I had to take a minute to go beat up a cushion in lieu of my innocent netbook.

And the paperwork appears! It's the NDA mentioned before! (Honestly, somewhat surprising - that was so not the important-foreboding-

telephone-conversation that I would have expected from Christian's earlier conversations.) Ana signs when Christian tells her too and is scolded for not reading the damn paperwork which I can't argue with.  NEVER sign legal paperwork without reading it and being at least somewhat sure you know what you're agreeing to.  Christian is somehow acting as both the bad guy (insisting she sign an ominous NDA) and the good guy (warning her never sign without reading) and Ana doesn't notice a problem with this.  Or with the fact that Christian only scolds her AFTER she's agreed to sign the paperwork.

Emboldened by this, Ana asks if he's intending to make love to her.  Christian scoffs and says that he doesn't make love - he fucks.  (I am surprised there isn't a mention of Ana's 'inner goddess' going a conga at this point.)  And he says that Ana still might want to run for the hills (ha, ha, ha....it is to fucking laugh.  Ana isn't going to run if you break out an adult diaper bag.  Ana probably wouldn't run in your damn house was on fire.)

Christian (in what is probably his best 'spooky' voice) tells her that she has to see his playroom first.  Ana - ever oblivious to the glaringly obvious - wonders if her virginity is going to be lost via XBox.  Christian laughs (and re-establishes his man card by naming the Playstation too) and takes her to see for herself.

Christian opens the door, sweeping Ana back to the Sixteenth Century and the Spanish Inquisition (Praying monks? People burning alive? Screaming, begging prisoners? Blood on the walls? Decapitated heads?) and she gasps!

And finally, thank fuck, the chapter is over!