Fifty Shades of Grey - Chapter 26

This is it! The last chapter (of part one, but let's not think about that)!

Ana wakes up alone and finds Grey at the piano, all mournful and brooding and vulnerable. *sad face*

After some conversation about the contract and obedience and shit, they teasingly start to run after each other with Grey threatening to 'punish' her for running away. Then they get totally serious again and Ana says that she feels about punishment as he does about being touched.

His entire demeanor changes in a nanosecond. Gone is playful Christian, and he stands staring at me as if I'd slapped him. He's ashen.

And, no, we don't get an explanation for why he hates to be touched. After all, there are more books to be written and money to be made off of desperate, undersexed middle aged women.

So Ana offers him a go at really punishing her, to see if she can actually stand it and they do indeed have a (dysfunctional) future together. She worries that she cannot give him what he needs.

This is a man in need. His fear is naked and obvious, but he's lost...somewhere in his darkness. His eyes wide and bleak and tortured. I can soothe him. Join him briefly in the darkness and bring him into the light.

He announces that he will hit her six times (with a belt, no less) and she is supposed to count the strikes.

Holy fuck this is going to hurt...I know. My subconscious has passed out, and my inner goddess is endeavoring to look brave.

After - with the pain and all - she finally goes off on him, yelling that he is 'one fucked-up son of a bitch' before leaving and curling up on the bed. She decides that this is not for her and she will leave.

My subconscious is shaking her head sadly, and my inner goddess is nowhere to be seen.

He joins her and they hug and have a really deep conversation. ("I don't think I can be everything you want me to be." - "You're right. I should let you go. I am no good for you." - "I don't want to go." - "I don't want you to go either." - "I've fallen in love with you, Christian." - "You can't love me, Ana. No...that's wrong.").

When it is time to go, she leaves the stuff he bought for her (and doesn't call the Mac 'The Mean Machine' for a change).

To no-one's surprise, she falls apart as soon as she is in the car taking her home. In her apartment she curls up on the bed (again). And one last time (in this part), the inner goddess rears her stupid head.

Deep down, a nasty, unbidden thought comes from my inner goddess, her lip curled in a snarl...the physical pain from the bite of a belt is nothing, nothing compared to this devastation. I curl up, desperately clutching the flat balloon and Taylor's handkerchief, and surrender myself to my grief.

And then...my very favorite part in this piece of shit of a book:

End of Part One

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