Fifty Shades Later: An Inevitable Conclusion (Fifty Shades of Neigh Book 3)

by Anna Roberts

  I have nobody to talk to. I'm so lonely. Maybe I should e-mail...

  No.

  - Who asked you?

  I need permission? No e-mail. Don't even think about it. I'm warning you. I've had enough of that bullshit.

  - Bullshit? I'll have you know I communicate better in writing than I do in person. I was always a very literary heroine.

  Sure you are. So what was the name of the heroine of Far From the Madding Crowd?

  I ignore her and go over to the bed. My laptop awaits. Why shouldn't I e-mail? Isn't it about time the epilatory novel came back?

  The what novel now?

  - Epilatory. When people communicate with each other in letter form. Don't you think it's due for a comeback, what with the twenty-first century resurgence of written communication?

  Well, yeah. Could be. Only I think you'll find that's epistolary.

  - Is it?

  Yep.

  - Are you sure? I thought epistolary was that scary thing they do with scissors when you have a baby? If you don't get to have an emergency c-section, that is.

  No, that's an episiotomy. Epistolary is the word for novels written in letter form, and epilatory pertains to pulling your pubes out by the roots. The only thing they have in common is that all three can be excruciatingly painful if not left to trained professionals.

  Thankfully the phone rings, putting an end to her mad ravings.

  "What up, shitlord," says Kate. "How's it going?"

  "Er...fine. Is something wrong?"

  "No. Just a heads up - your mom's probably going to call you and tell you to call me. And check in on your kid. Remember her?"

  My baby. How could I forget her? "Aw. How is my little pumpkin?"

  "Same. Small. Ginger. Evil. Hasn't invaded Poland yet, but it's only a matter of time."

  "Is she there?"

  "Sleeping. It's how I was able to phone you in the first place. You think she'd let me carry on a conversation this long if she was conscious? How's France?"

  "Oh, you know. French. We went to the beach yesterday."

  "Did your bikini line freak them out?"

  "No!" I blush and twist my pearls around my finger. "Actually...I've gone...Brazilian."

  Kate snorts with laughter. "Holy fucking shit. Seriously? You finally waxed your underpant beard?"

  "Well, I was in London one afternoon and he had some meetings and I'd read the Gideon's Bible and the Room Service menu and the wine list..."

  "Yeah, I think I can guess which of those high-flown literary item merited your serious perusal, Hanna."

  I giggle. "Well, maybe I was a little tipsy. And kind of bored. I'd never shaved it all off before."

  "Wait," says Kate. "You were in London?"

  "Yes."

  "London, England? The same fucking London you talked about for like four years of college because you thought one day you were going to go there and be embraced as one of their own because you were smart, drank tea and had off-white teeth?"

  "I know. I got veneers since then..."

  "...and finding yourself alone in London for an afternoon you seriously couldn't think of anything to do except sit around a hotel room and shave your foof? Are you fucking insane? Wait, no - don't answer that. I've known the answer to that for years."

  "Well, what was I supposed to do?"

  "Oh, I dunno Hanna. Maybe go and see some shit? Like culture? Old things. The Tower of London. Trafalgar Square? Big Ben? The Science Museum. The Natural History Museum. The Egyptian collection at the British Museum? The V and A - oh no, wait - you kind of saw that one. I'm assuming you used a hand mirror to get to the tricky bits, right?"

  I feel my blush deepen. "No. I couldn't. I'm still kind of post-traumatic from the you-know-what workshops when I was a teenager. Actually it's kind of itchy. Should it be like that?"

  "You moron. You've probably given yourself a bad case of razor burn. Didn't they shave you when you had the c-section?"

  "Yeah, but they just took the top part off for the incision...they didn't get into the nooks and crannies. They left the bottom part long."

  Kate laughs. "They gave your pussy a mullet? Fucking awesome."

  "I do wish you wouldn't call it that."

  "What am I supposed to call it? Hanna, you're a grown woman with a child. Are you seriously still getting the vapours every time someone uses the P word? What are you going to tell Lessy when she gets into GaGa's copy of Nancy Friday?"

  "Lessy?"

  "Yeah. Celestia. You know. Small angry person. She lived in you for nine months. Gave you the horizontal smile to match your vertical one."

  "Her name is Celestia Phoebe Isabella," I say. "If I wanted to name her Lessy I would have done so. Please refer to my daughter by her proper name."

  "It's a nickname," says Kate. "It's affectionate."

  "It sounds like you're calling her 'Lezzy'," I hiss down the phone.

  "So? What if she is? Dude, that's really homophobic. Would you seriously turn your back on your firstborn just because she was genetically blessed with a low golf handicap?”

  "She's a baby, Kate. I hardly think we need to worry about her sexual orientation right now."

  "Nah. No need to worry. That's the great thing about lesbian daughters - they don't go out and get knocked up halfway through college. And she's not a baby - she's a goddamn toddler. Toddling all over the place. Not quite two but terrible all the same. She might be a whole lot less terrible if her Mommy-dearest was occasionally on the same continent as her, know what I'm saying?"

  I sigh. "I know that. It's just...it's complicated. Me and Mr. Neigh..."

  "Mr. Neigh?"

  "Yes. That's what I call him."

  "Okaaay," says Kate. "You shave your nooni for this guy and you're not on first name terms?"

  "It's a kink thing. You know what he's like. Anyway, it's kind of a joke with us. Every morning when we wake up from a section break he's like 'Good morning, Mrs. Neigh' and I'm all 'Good morning, Mr Neigh'. It's funny."

  Silence drifts back from the opposite side of the ocean. "Yeah," says Kate, eventually. "I think I had more fun the last time I found blood in my stool, but whatever gets you through the night and doesn't cause a bout of cold sweats in the morning. Oh, hey - wait. I think Damiana is waking up."

  There's a pause and then I hear screams in the background. Celestia is awake and yelling about Jews, for some reason.

  Oh dear. Maybe it is time you had the 'Invading Poland' talk with her. They grow up so fast, these days, don't they? They're babies for the blink of an eye and the next thing you know they're annexing the Sudetenland.

  - Will you knock it off? You got your way. I'm not e-mailing anyone, am I?

  Fair enough. Just don't come crying to me when she burns down the Reichstag and blames it on the Communists.

  The screaming stops. I hear sucking sounds on the other end of the phone. I hear Kate talking in a coaxing, swear-free voice that I've never heard her use before. "You wanna say hi to Mommy, Lezzy? Say hi to Mommy."

  The slurping sounds stop. I hear my baby breathing. Then her tiny little voice drifts to my ear. "What up, shitlord?"

  Kate is laughing.

  "Put Aunty Kate back on, Celestia," I say.

  "GaGa piss!"

  "What? Give Aunty Kate the phone, pumpkin."

  "No 'smine. GIMME IT!"

  Celestia fades into the background for a moment. "Oh shit," says Kate.

  "MINE!" yells Celestia. "MINE! MINE! MINE!"

  "No. Get off me...stop pulling my hair, you little psycho...Tate? Get the kid."

  I hear Uncle Tate in the background. What the hell is going on over there? An icy terror grips my heart - I always knew she was different. I always knew she wasn't like the other babies. Even from the beginning she just seemed...I don't know...more. More sensitive, more needy. I begin to sob down the phone. "I'm a terrible mother!"

  Celestia's screams recede. I wait for Kate to contradict me. She doesn't.

  "How long
has she been calling people shitlords?" I ask.

  "Actually that was her first time," says Kate, and fuck her if she doesn't sound slightly proud.

  "This is awful!"

  "Nah. It's fine. Just shows she's paying attention to something beyond dancing parrots and her own insatiable desire for juice boxes. She's learning - that's a good thing."

  "I'm coming home," I say. "I should be there for her."

  "Gee, do you think?"

  I ignore the sarcasm and end the call. I slip on a peignoir and go in search of my husband. I find him in the luxury yacht's small but well-appointed sex dungeon, arranging buttplugs by height. "I can't decide if I should arrange them by girth instead," he said. "Or maybe by number of knobbly bits. What do you think, Porkchop?"

  "Bennett," I say. "Listen to me. This is very important. We have to go back to America."

  He looks up from fondling a three-bulge bright pink monster that he knows affectionately as 'Mr. Stretchy'. My buttocks clench reflexively at the sight of it. "Why? Is something wrong?" His face brightens. "Did Mother die?"

  "No. But my two year old daughter just called me a shitlord."

  "Is that bad?"

  "Bad? Of course it's bad."

  "It could be worse. She could be calling you a shit-peasant. At least in whatever feudal system exists in her head you're given dominion over shit."

  I feel a strange shiver of déja vu and remember that Kate once used this exact reasoning when I told her to stop calling me a shitlord. I always forget that she once slept with my husband, that fateful night when my poor, lost Crispian tenderly kidnapped me from the parking lot, that fateful parking lot where I was throwing up after a misguided attempt to win a beer chugging match against his brothers.

  But no, no. I can't think of that right now. My little girl needs me. I need to be there to make sure she learns to speak properly. I've got her name down for the most exclusive preparatory kindergarten in the entire Pacific Northwest. Imagine if she turns up on her first day, calls the teacher a shitlord and doesn't realise that the 'c's in Gucci are soft c's?

  "We have to go home," I say. "Please."

  "But Schnitzel, the house won't be ready yet and you know how you get with the architec..."

  "...I'll be fine, Bennett! And stop giving me pet-names based on pork products. What the hell are you trying to say?"

  As I storm out I hear him murmur "Actually I thought schnitzel was veal..." but I don't have time for these trivialities. If we're not on the first flight out of Nice next morning then there will be trouble. And I suppose someone is going to have to get Kate back to Seattle, seeing as Celestia can hardly travel on her own.

  I flip open my laptop, flip off my Inner Goddess and open my e-mail.

  To: Hanna Neigh

  From: Anonymous

  Subject: Shall I Compare Thee To A Summer's Eve?

  Fair maiden, dost thou recall that fragrant night when we trysted beneath the twinkling lights of an enchanted woode?

  What the fuck? Anonymous? Oh my God. Could it be...no, it couldn't...could it?

  Probably. Didn't you see the cover design for book two?

  The masqued ball. Where the triangle player ran off to Tijuana and his replacement disappeared just as fast. That magical evening where I beat the shit out of Crispian's defence attorney and then he escaped custody by disguising himself and stealing the Thomasens' helicopter...

  ...and dying in the subsequent helicopter explosion.

  - Yes. One of the worst moments of my entire life.

  I know. Although still not as bad as the will-reading, where you realised that all of his assets were still frozen and his death hadn't left you a rich widow at all.

  Do you mind? That was an extremely painful time for me.

  It was. But hey - six weeks later you were shacked up with his brother and drawing up plans for a post-natal tummy tuck.

  I sigh. This is exactly why I have to get back to Seattle. Celestia is the only thing Crispian really left me. I found out I was five weeks pregnant five weeks after his death. It must have happened the night when he made me pay for the hooker he'd hired and then I got drunk and threw up on him while he was catatonic. And then we tried to get the red-wine puke stain of the rug with soda, but he thought I meant Mountain Dew and just made it worse. And green. Oh memories. Those heady days of my first and most perfect love.

  Chapter Four

  A La Recherche du Hommes Perdu

  I gaze in increasing perplexity at my e-mail inbox. I re-read the e-mail, and read it again, in a desperate attempt to pad the wordcount to New York Times Bestseller lengths. What can it mean? Crispian used to talk to me all medieval sometimes. It was our thing. Our thing that only we knew about. Could this mean he's...?

  A question mark?

  No.

  An ellipsis?

  - No, you idiot. A ghost.

  My Inner Goddess sighs heavily and pours herself a large gin and tonic. Swing and miss there, champ.

  Can it be? This is chilling, and disturbing. It's even more chilling and disturbing than the time I drank a slushie too fast while watching my mother perform a topless interpretive dance of a sexually explicit love poem she'd written to her own ladygarden. Could it be that I'm haunted by my lost love? It's so...literary. Like in Tess of the D'Urbervilles when Tess goes up on the battlements and sees her father's ghost. Only he would know to haunt me in a literary way!

  My husband stomps into the room, interrupting my reverie. "You're right," he says. "I'll book us on the next available flight."

  "What can you mean?" I gasp.

  "We're going home, Hanna. Like you wanted."

  "Why?" Is it destiny? Is it Crispian's ghostly hands working the strings of fate, drawing me inexorably back to the place where I belong, where the sasquatches roam free and the Twihards howl in the rainy night? Back, back to my beloved Seattle/Portland/Forks. Sporks.

  "Work called," said my husband. "Said someone set my office on fire, would you believe."

  My heart is clutched in a fist of ice. My teeth rattle and my guts writhe.

  Yeah. That'll be the slightly out of date calamari you had in your seafood cocktail.

  - Shh! This is high drama.

  Right you are. Carry on, Ophelia. Wake me when it's time for the car chase scene.

  My mind is a whirl. "But who would do such a thing? Did they leave a note?"

  He frowns at me and chews his lower lip. "Why would they do that?"

  "To say why they did it, of course!"

  "Right. They'd write a note explaining why they set fire to my office, put the note on the desk and then set fire to my office?"

  "Yes. Otherwise what would be the point of setting fire to your office?"

  He squints. "You don't think the note would be one of the first things to burn in the fire? Being paper and all?"

  Oh yeah. "Well, maybe they had the same thought process," I say. "Maybe that's why they didn't leave a note?"

  My husband sighs. "Yeah. Just pack, Hanna. Can you manage that?"

  "I don't know. Is the maid still here?"

  This is terrifying, yet intriguing. Everything is happening at once! And they said there wasn't a plot in this one. I pack away my laptop and my jewellery. Ghosts, fires, mysterious e-mails - what can it all mean?

  That in writing this parody the author trimmed over a hundred and fifty thousand words of pointless filler from the original?

  - I thought you were taking a nap until the car chase scene?

  I was. I just felt I should point out the masterful way the author incorporates the plot points from the original book while skilfully shaving off the pointless bloat that made the sequels even more unreadable than Fifty Shades of Grey. And maybe point out that she hasn't treated herself to a new pair of shoes in a while.

  - Okay, no. Pull your skirt down, sweetie. Your meta is showing.

  That's not my meta. It's just an ill-advised tattoo I got when I was seventeen.

  - Yeah. Too much information.


  You're very welcome.

  It's two in the morning when we arrive at Sea-Tac. Kate should already be here, but she's not here to greet us, so we call a cab and head back to the big house. For a moment I yearn for the penthouse where I first lost my heart and my virginity to my darling Crispian. Once I thought it would be the home of our dreams, with its surprisingly roomy interior, featuring a library, a billiard room, a chocolate room, a shark tank, several portals to Narnia and a small but effective Stargate in the housekeeper's ensuite.

  Then I remember that Stargates must be an absolute bitch to childproof, and think better of it.

  Besides, Celestia doesn't need to know too much about her real father's...proclivities. The Pink Room of Ponies lies padlocked, and I like it that way. In way it's kind of liberating to be with a man who doesn't care if you get Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie mixed up, and who doesn't call you a half-blind dumbass when you mistakenly think they have similar colour schemes.

  But no. I mustn't think these treacherous thoughts. Must I? Will he haunt me here, in the house his brother bought for me? I roll jetlagged into my burled-walnut sleigh bed, and would sleep my way into a section break if the goddamn author hadn't just used up a section break on my journey from Nice to Seattle. Thankfully I'm a very symbolic dreamer.

  In my dream I am in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles. Once a humble hunting lodge it was converted by Louis the Somethingth into a magical palace of symbolical mirrors. And also I'll fill that bit in on Wikipedia later. Was it the fifteenth or the fourteenth? Oh, who gives a shit? They're dead anyway.

  Back to my dream. The Hall of Mirrors is palatial, and magnificent, like a magnificent palace. I drift, in old-fashioned clothes, down the middle of the room. There is a wind blowing past me (and if she says one more word about the slightly out-of-date calamari I swear to God I'm gonna rip her head off and puke down the neckhole), ruffling the lace ruffles of my medieval clothes.