Before we head to the story…

I read all Fifty Shades trilogy (online and without paying any cent) in English a couple of years ago, because I wanted to read something light and sexy that would make me laugh. It was also a way to improve my English skills, since I was about to make major changes in my life, and take a master degree where a good level of English was important. To be honest, the book helped me very little with the language, but at least now I know that “crop” is a word that can be used in a context not related to agriculture… As for the rest, the books made me uncomfortable about how Christian Grey’s creepy behaviour is validated by his looks, wealth and his early childhood traumas, giving the reader the impression that he only needed the lurve of a good gullible virgin woman to help him heal – blerrgh! Since they are right now shooting a film based on these books, this story is my humble attempt to show how the film should/could have been done in order not to be a complete waste of space and empower women. I stress that there may be some errors in the timeline of this story and the reason is that it bores me to look at those books again for a fact check. On the other hand, there is no erotica here. Sorry about that, random reader! I suggest you to imagine things going back and forth to Ana and Christian’s steamy sex with whips and bloody tampons, with a voice over narrating the facts from another point of view.

My name is Kate Kavanaugh and I would like to tell you about the most intriguing friend I have, who is currently my sister in law. Her name is Anastasia Steele. On the outside she is an attractive big blue eyed brunette, with a very down to earth style, but as soon as you get to know her deeper you realize that some things don’t make much sense…

For example, she managed to graduate without using a computer and dealing with the basics of Internet. I never had any hint of super-human research skills that would enable her to deny years of technological development in making things more accessible and thus, making students able to work faster and on bigger amounts of information. Maybe this is some kind of autism that gives her a complete apathy regarding technology and super brain power when producing academic papers… On the other hand, her clumsiness and general niceness makes me feel kind of protective towards her. I mean, we have known each other for so long, and she has always been there for me whenever I had boy-troubles, that a friendship was bound to happen.

I remember fondly when she used to entertain me with her views on love and relationships, and I was never sure if she was being for real or not… Even though she likes to name drop some classic authors, I am almost sure that she read and re-read too many times those Sweet Valley High books, that many 80’s and 90’s kids have had contact with. Her pep talks and world views seemed to have come directly from there. Plus, the classic books she likes, the female characters always end up oppressed, even though the descriptions of feelings and drama are always engaging. This could only be it, since at 22 she never had a boyfriend/girlfriend or had shown the curiosity for such (as in, she was a virgin) until she met Christian Grey, who is now her husband.

Also she has always been very judgemental regarding my sex life, while at the same time showing some signs of jealousy of my blond hair (I am almost sure she once said that I looked like a Wakefield twin), and my WASP-y background, even though I used to lend her my clothes (I never saw that lovely plum dress again…) and never made her pay rent when we lived together. Moreover, her husband, apart from the classic good looks, doesn’t have anything remotely likeable, but it is better if I explain things from the beginning.

I am very aware of my background and my capability of pulling some strings and getting things from high rank people, and sometimes I have fun doing that. Three years ago, as a hobby, I harassed Christian Grey into giving an interview to the university where I was studying. Ana’s now husband is a freakishly young CEO and has been one of the major donors to our university. To be honest, I think that his wealth is linked with something as dark as gun trafficking, due to a strange business liaison he still has with that high society cougar called Elena.

On the day that it was scheduled for me to interview him, I had an idea to entertain myself and my slightly darker manipulative side, by playing a little prank with Christian and his type-A personality that I was betting on him to have. I put on my pyjama and lied down pretending to have a major cold. When Ana arrived, I told her that she absolutely had to go in my place to interview him. She was really overwhelmed, and it was the moment that her ‘Mary-Sueness’ really started to annoy me, so I continued pretending. Nothing bad would happen to her, right? The worst case scenario was that he would be all bothered, and we would have a laugh at his snobbishness when she came back home. It is not like he would turn out to be a sociopath that would manipulate her into being is trophy wife and entering a secluded domestic reality frozen in the 1950’s with some sort of domestic sexual abuse with the excuse of BDSM, right? I mean, nobody could have guessed that, right?!

Well, Ana went to the interview, and when she came back she was all blushing and biting her lip and mysterious. Just like that time when I decided to make a girls night at our place and watched a couple of cheesy erotic movies from the 80’s starring Mickey Rourke. When she showed me the recordings of the interview I had the feeling that Christian was teasing and flirting with her big time, giving a lot of cocky answers to impress her… I thought she wasn’t that bad either in answering him. At least she managed to show some assertiveness, as far as it was possible to her. And then I had a moment of insanity and wondered what would be like if both of them had an affair. So I couldn’t keep my big mouth shut and said that he seemed to be allured by her. Because of that I had a bad sleeping night, since Ana was speaking loudly during her sleep, talking about grey eyes and her inner goddess doing some crazy pole dancing, which I suppose it was a metaphor about her vagina getting some action. Or maybe I was just being too Freudian when I interpreted the words “inner goddess” and “pole”…

Days passed and then it was time for the photo shoot to get some pictures for the article. Ana’s friend José, was a photographer that was helping out, and he confessed to me later that he felt really devastated by the chemistry happening with Christian, because Ana was “his muse, his Manic Pixie Dream Girl”. I felt that Christian taking Ana for coffee after we were all finished was kind of cute. I guess in that moment I was trying to be less cynical about people and thought it would be nice for Ana to eventually get some.

Then, it was weekend. We were out celebrating our graduation day and drank lots of alcohol. It was a terrible night because José acted all in love and obsessed with Ana, to the point of being too grope-y and rape-y. Then Christian Grey, Mr. Creepy McCreeperson himself, appeared, “saved her” and basically kidnapped her, after she vomited in front of him. The night wasn’t all that bad because it was when I met Elliot, his foster brother and now my husband. But we were all drunk and confused about what happened and both I and José spent an entire weekend calling her, to check if she was okay.

By Sunday morning, she sent me message that at least gave me some comfort that she wasn’t being forcefully held as a sex slave in a dungeon, so I began to relax and really enjoy Elliot’s company, if you know what I mean… By the end of the day, she came back home and told me that she had sex for the first time, and then some other shenanigans about her subconscious and her inner goddess. She told me about climaxing a gazillion times and discovering that she was really great in giving BJs because she didn’t have a gag reflex. I guess this girl has a magical vagina and was genetically engineered for sex… But hey, she seemed happy and I was glad she overcome her blocks, even though some resentment was still nagging me. I was really worried that she didn’t get mine or José’s calls for a long time during the weekend. But all that thing about being happy for her quickly passed, when latter he suddenly appeared at our place and I saw her cry when he left. I mean, she said she wasn’t abused, but she seemed really confused and in pain…

Then, he started to offer her even scarier presents than the original copies of classic novels she received after the photo shoot. These presents were about Ana having her first computer and a Blackberry, and both should be used only for their own private communications. I also became acquainted that he went to see her at her workplace before the photo shoot, which by itself screams “crazy murderous stalker”. The murderer part being that he bought ropes and cable ties, between other items. Remember when I said that I was trying to be less cynical? Well, that was the moment when I decided not to ignore more red flags from that douche bag. She said to me, while sobbing, that she was in love, and that it was complicated. I get it, trust me. I remember how putting out for the first time usually leads to one of the most confusing periods of your life: raging hormones, the first comfort of a person so intimate to you triggering lots of hidden “emotional needs”, yadda, yadda.

Since in that time I was actually starting to date Elliot, I vowed myself to keep an eye on them as much as I could. So my behaviour in making awkward stances about them being boyfriend and girlfriend changed into one that tried to present Ana as a person who had guy friends and an independent life apart from him. When she panicked when I raised the subject of her having drinks with a male friend in front of Christian, I just had to say to her to be careful, because he was dangerous. As weeks passed by, she started spending even more time with Christian and I felt the need to get away from that craziness for while and also invest in my relationship with Elliot. It’s the basic principle: if you are not in a good place in your life, you are not as able to help your friends.

When I later found a copy of a freakin’ BDSM contract in a jacket that Christian left at our apartment, I just had to intervene. If Ana wasn’t a virgin when she met him and his controlling side was something that was only used in the context of their own sexual fulfilment, the situation was different. I would have only raised the subject during harmless girly talk with Ana. When I approached them on this matter, they tried to give me the idea of being a normal loving couple practicing consensual sex, but I knew Ana and also a lot of the world of workaholic psychopathic CEOs to fully believe in them.

I gradually became more aware of other weird things in their relationship after they got married and when Ana was more relaxed and started giving away bits of their moments together. For instance, they were once separated for about 5 days, because Ana felt he went too rough on her, when she asked for a dose of his darker fetishes. However the way he got her back, was through making it all seem like it was her fault for not using the safe word and communicating things, when he basically disregards any other of her attempts of communication. Then it was the whole arrangement of his crazy ex-girlfriend trying to kill Ana, except for the fact that he didn’t refer to her as a girlfriend, or even a person in a normal social context, but a… submissive. “She is my ex-sub”, he said once to Ana as an explanation about who that person was. And for a moment I was hoping he was referring to an expired Subway sandwich!

Anyway, she told me that in the brief days they were apart he bought the company that she was working for, because he wanted to invest in publishing and that particular company had a good profile. And she believed in his lame excuses! I think she’s been even more keener into believing him due to untreated Post-traumatic Stress Disorder, from those horrible days when her boss harassed and later tried to kill her. Well, if you want my opinion, Christian is not much better than him. He manipulated a spineless and confused Ana, into believing his crap and feeling emotionally addicted to all of his mind games, and into conforming to be his submissive, not only in bed, but also in life as his wife. Nowadays she barely works (and publishing was supposedly her big passion), she finds funny that her husband likes her barefoot and pregnant in his kitchen, and her life is about changing diapers and be ready for whatever Christian wants. She also still lives in a constant worry about her husband’s mood swings and how to please him, even after she supposedly helped him with his mommy issues.

Nowadays, I basically go to their house to check on their kids. And I feel a deep guilt that my little prank led my stupid friend to fall in love with this guy and become victim of a severe case of Stockholm syndrome. That is basically why I booked this appointment with you, doctor. I feel like I need help to cope with having indirectly lead Ana to the arms of a sociopath, and how hard it is to deal with it so closely… Because if I see Christian Grey again pressing his lips into a hard line one more time, every time Ana talks about a girl’s night out, and then Ana making excuses for me not to visit them so soon, I think I will lose it completely.