Chapter by Chapter synopsis: Fifty Shades of Grey: chapters 17-20

Chapter Seventeen


When we last left Ana and Christian, Christian had come back to Ana and Kate’s house because Ana said she didn’t like how he left her alone after spanking her and they ended up sleeping in the same bed together, something Christian just doesn’t *do*. So in this chapter, they wake up together, both commenting on how well they slept. Christian maybe slept a little too well because he’s late for a meeting or something. He leaves, threatening Ana again to not drive her car.

Ana emails Christian to explain a little more about how the spanking felt, and his response is to be like, “You never used the safe word.” I cannot stress how much Ana is not a sub. Maybe one day she could be, but she currently is not used to safe words and stuff like that. Heck, I’m pretty savvy, but I don’t know if I would remember to use a safe word my first time being “punished” by a Dom. This is not the first time I think Christian is being unreasonable, but I think he’s being particularly unreasonable and callous here. And when Ana threatens to run off? Christian can track her cell phone, of course. Keep in mind that he said he wouldn’t chase after her if she decided to leave.

Every move you make, every step you take...

Ana finally goes to the hardware store and really enjoys driving her new car. Around lunch, a messenger comes with a blackberry that has email capability so that Christian can continue to talk to her. I don’t see why she can’t just text him? Is that hard? Is it so different from e-mailing? Or is it just that with texts, we can’t get his “cute” little titles for himself and subject lines? I suspect it’s the latter. Anyway, Ana promises to e-mail Christian once she gets home.

Ana leaves the normal world behind when she quits her job, and goes home to find Kate completely unimpressed with the brand new car. Taylor comes for the Beetle, and I have huge issues with this. Not only does Christian pretty much out and say that Ana is weak and unable to be safe, but Jose should have been offered the car. Jose Sr. should have been offered the car. It was Jose’s dead mom’s car. I’m pretty sure he would have wanted it back. As Taylor leaves, he tells Ana that Christian is a good man. Hey, Taylor? If Christian wanted your daughter to be his sub, would you still feel that way? As any of us who love Professor Snape. He’s a good man, but not particularly kind. It’s easy to be that way.

Elliott comes over to see Kate later, and Ana rolls her eyes at how he acts towards Kate. Ana feels free being able to roll her eyes at someone. As Elliott and Kate get loudly busy, Ana decides to go out for a drink with Jose (oh noes, what will Christian think??) and as they walk out, Ana thinks about how uncomplicated Jose is. She also thinks he’s going to be upset about the car, so she’s afraid to talk to him about it. Does this girl have a relationship with anyone where there is an open and honest line of communication? Signs point to “no”.

Ana gets back home kind of late and finds e-mails and missed calls from Christian. She realizes that she didn’t e-mail him like she said she would, and now she’s all worried that he’ll be angry. She calls him and has to make him feel good about himself now, because you know, that’s her job.

The next day is moving day, and Elliott helps both Kate and Ana and hangs their TV on the wall and everything. It’s really sweet. It’s how boyfriends act. Christian is not a boyfriend, so he’s not there. He sends a bottle of pink champagne and a helicopter balloon that looks like Christian’s helicopter. Throughout the move, Ana was jealous about how demonstrative Elliott is towards Kate, but she’s not willing to give up Christian in order to find someone who will behave that way towards her, so I just really can’t feel sorry for her.

Ana e-mails Christian to thank him for the balloon and says it’s currently tied to her bed. Christian’s all, “Lucky Charlie Tango.” I mean, I know he’s (probably) not jealous of the balloon (maybe), but honestly? He can be tied to Ana’s bed. He can be there. He just has these stupid arbitrary rules that say he can’t spend the night or be romantic or relinquish any sort of control, so saying something like that is monumentally illogical. It’s not like there’s going to be an occasion where he will ever be tied to Ana’s bed, so why say that?

I tell you what's illogical.

The next day, Ana heads over to Casa Christian, and he shows her that they made the newspaper with the photo that got taken at graduation. To his credit, he’s not flipping out. What he is flipping out about is that his mom wants him to bring Ana to her house for dinner that evening.

Christian rolls his eyes at Ana, and Ana confronts him about how he’s allowed to do that, but she’s not. He’s like, “Oh, I wasn’t aware I was doing that…” Idiot.

Chapter Eighteen



Christian has a gynecologist called into his apartment on a Sunday, and she examines Ana and prescribes hormonal birth control (HBC) for her. I am so hoping that this is the end of the condom descriptions.

Ana comments that Dr. Green doesn’t suffer fools gladly, like Kate. Does this mean that Kate also doesn’t suffer fools gladly, or that Dr. Greene doesn’t suffer Kate? Either way, both suffer Ana, so make of that what you will.

We return to “The Red Room of Pain” (a new movie starring Vincent Price!) that is so red and like a womb and sexy because it’s reminiscent of a woman’s reproductive pouch. Christian shows Ana what he expects, which is the first thing he’s really done in this regard. Ana kneels with her palms on her thighs and waits for Christian. He doesn’t tell her she can’t look around with her head down, so I’m assuming she’s allowed to and that is the reason she’s not in trouble for staring at his feet.

Finally, Christian has kinky sex using handcuffs and a riding crop that is just like the one from Ana’s dream. She decides she enjoys it just fine. Then he uncuffs her and uses the zip ties instead and finally she gets his little shopping spree at the beginning of the book. I just want to reiterate that there’s really not a lot in this scene that I can’t imagine the president doing to Mrs. Obama. Not that I would imagine that. But I’m just saying it’s not anything…oh, never mind.

"Let me show you my technique."

Chapter Nineteen

After a nice nap, Ana and Christian get ready to go to the Grey House, only Christian has Ana’s panties and hasn’t offered them back yet. She decides to not ask for them back and goes around commando. This is a good plan if you’re woman enough to pull it off, particularly in a skirt. It makes the guy think that you’ve been thinking about him all night, and that you want him. Ana, of course, is not woman enough to pull it off and is totally a basket case over it.

At The Grey House, we meet Mia, Christian’s really annoying little sister. She’s about Ana’s age and has Curves in All the Right Places®. If any guy ever thought about doing to Mia what Christian does to Ana, then Christian would kill the guy. This is what we call a double standard, children.

So now that Ana is in The Grey Living Room, she starts realizing that the only reason Christian invited her was because Kate was invited, and that he didn’t want her to feel bad about not going. I actually come out on the side of Christian in this one, because I don’t see him as the sort of guy who would allow people to tell him what to do. He’s a control freak, and if he didn’t want Ana there, she wouldn’t be there.

"I never let anyone tell me what to do! Except Darcy. And my sister."

There’s a maid because of course there is, and of course, she’s hot for Christian. This is getting old.

Around the dinner table, everyone starts bringing up fabulous vacations, so Ana sort of defensively says she’s been thinking about visiting her mom in Georgia. What she doesn’t say is that she’s been thinking about it for the last two minutes or so.

Christian, of course (all together now) is angry.

This is my issue: Christian only wants Ana on the weekends. If she goes to Georgia during the week, why does he care? If he doesn’t want the sort of relationship with hearts and Hallmark cards and unicorns pooping rainbows, then he can’t expect this stuff from Ana.

Kate takes this opportunity to start riling Christian up about how Ana went out for a drink with Jose. Honey badger cares. Honey badger gives a shit. Honey badger is angry. Ana is understandably scared.

"No! I don't care! I don't give a fuck! I just got bit by a cobra!"

Ana shouldn’t be scared. This is bullshit. Jose has been her friend for years, and yeah, when he was drunk he tried to kiss her because alcohol removes inhibitions. But he apologized and Ana is now okay with him. Christian should be too. And you should never be this scared of your boyfriend!

But then he’s suddenly fine and so is Ana because both of these people have the intelligence and attention span of a goldfish.

"I speak on behalf of all goldfish when I say I am offend...bubbles!"

However, when Christian offers to take Ana on a tour of the grounds, we all know what’s going to happen. He’s going to spank her for being a bad, bad girl.

See, in normal relationships, you say that “bad, bad girl” part with sarcasm dripping. In this relationship, he means it.





Chapter Twenty

Ana manages to talk Christian out of hitting her, which confuses him. I guess because he’s used to subs? And he’s also confused that she refused him at dinner. You see, he was putting his hand up her thigh and she squeezed her legs together to stop him, and that’s never happened to him before. He finally settles on getting himself off, but not letting her orgasm. And we’re treated to even more condom fun. Joy.

Mia, of course, breaks in on their post-coital bliss causing them to scramble into their clothing really quickly. Mia doesn’t know how to not be annoying. I also don’t see how she doesn’t know what’s going on. I mean, she’s supposed to be around 22, so clearly she should have this whole sex thing figured out.

Back inside, Ana asks Kate to stop antagonizing Christian. Kate says that she wants Ana to see him as he really is. Which might be okay if you had a friend who was not consenting to being abused. If you do know someone who is being abused, though, antagonizing the abuser will probably just make your friend cling to the abuser even more, and the abuser will single you out as the first person to be isolated from. The best thing I’ve found, back when my friend was with a guy who was really super controlling, not much fun, but my friend felt this crazy compunction to be with him, was to just start talking through hypotheticals with her. And even that was only after she called me really upset and worried about how things were going. I also started out the conversation defending him against a mutual friend, so I started out from a place that was not antagonizing. I mean, these are things you really have to skate a fine line with. Kate is as subtle as Baldric with Ana as her crazy Blackadder.

"I am no longer the worst human being on the face of the earth! Curse you, Christian Grey!"

On the way home, Ana confesses to Christian that she only brought up Georgia so she didn’t seem like a loser with no vacation plans in front of his parents. Had she not brought this up a few chapters ago, I’d believe her. Anyway, Christian encourages her to go visit her mom, and I hope she has tons of money because transcontinental flights on the fly aren’t cheap or easy to get. I hope she has a long book to read on stand-by. Finally, she admits that she’s also feeling really overwhelmed by him and needs Georgia in order to think away from him.

Christian begs Ana to stay the night in his bed. Funny, because when Ana begged Christian, he still left. But Ana stays. He wants to go to Georgia with her because he doesn’t understand the whole “need for space away from you” part of the issue. Ana tells him no. Note from the future: he’s going to show up.

Okay, Christian puts some Benewah Balls inside Ana. What are Benewah balls? They are weighted, generally stainless steel, balls that you stick in your vagina in order to exercise your Kegel muscles. Since Ana is very young and virginal, I don’t think her muscles are very stretched out, but learning to clench is also learning to unclench, so it’s never too early to start. (Unclenching would help with fisting and also extreme/double penetration, if you’re into that or thinking about either of those things, you may want to look into the balls.)

The balls in question are stainless, and held together by a black thread. I googled for ages and could not find any Benewah balls that looked like this. I found something called “Luna Balls” that were silicone and held together by silicone with a silicone pull-cord to remove them, but all the Benewah Balls I could find were separate, and can I just mention that I doubt that little black string is too easy to sanitize? Benewah balls are separate usually because you’re supposed to start with one, for just a minute or two, and then slowly build your muscles to handle the weight for a full fifteen minutes. Then you start with the second. If you can sneeze and not have the balls shoot out, you’re doing good. It’s about controlling the muscles, not just making them tight. Benewah balls help with incontinence, too, and even men find them useful for the “back door” as it were, so they’re really good for all sexes.

These are actually Baoding Balls because I wanted this to be SFW.
(this is funny because they look exactly alike)

Christian’s balls, I have mentioned, are held together by a black string and have a pull cord with them. I don’t see how even synthetic string could be sanitized easily, but whatever. This author also has Ana with a full bladder in the third book while she has a catheter inside of her, so it’s not like I expected her to research or anything, but making it seems that someone can just do this right away is really irresponsible to me. What does she have to do? She has to walk and get him a drink of water. Then he spanks her, but for pleasure, and then he has sex with her.



More to come

Update: My Kindle died last night, and I'm about to go on vacation for over a week, so I probably won't update about Fifty Shades for a couple of weeks. Hopefully I'll be getting back to Christian and Ana around July 16th or so, so try and hold on. I mean, who knows what's going to happen between these two crazy kids! I mean, their relationship is so strong and built on tons of trust and friendship and respect for one another, so it'd be terrible if something came between them.