by Anna Roberts
It’s always weird to see him playing this role, because he does it so well. Even more mind-blowing is that he now owns this place.
“If anyone asks for me,” he says. “I’m not here. I’m still at the funeral. Okay?”
“Yes, Ms. Waters.”
We get into the elevator. I instinctively check for signs of sandworms, but so far so good. “I thought we were going to go and get shitfaced?” I say.
“We are,” he says. “Just let me show you this first.”
The elevator door opens on a busy open plan office floor. On the other side is an office, and as we approach I make out the letters on the door.
Kate Hannigan
Head of Creative Marketing
“Whoa,” I say, and it’s like my heels literally dig into the floor. Jesús doesn’t let go of my hand and tugs me towards the door.
I shake my head. “No way.”
“What? What’s the matter?”
“You know what’s the matter,” I say, but he obviously doesn’t. So I stomp after him into the office, rather than make a scene with everyone staring at us.
I close the door. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
“What?”
“You gave me a job?”
“Yes,” he says, slowly. “Is that a problem?”
“Oh, wow. I don’t know. You bought a company and then gave me a job – a job I know nothing about. Remind you of anyone?”
Jesús sighs and perches on the edge of the desk. My desk. There’s a fucking fruit basket on it and everything. “No,” he says. “There’s a difference – Hanna was not, is not and never will be Senior Commissioning Editor material...”
“...okay. And I’m Head of Creative Marketing material, am I?”
He doesn’t flinch. “Yep.”
“How? In what way?”
“You’re capable of using the expression ‘high-concept’ with a straight face and without feeling queasy,” says Jesús. “Which is more than I can do.”
“I’m pretty sure there’s more to creative marketing than that, dude.”
He sighs. “Creative marketing just means ‘making people buy stuff’. You can do that. You always had exceptional powers of persuasion.”
I stare at him for a moment. “No.”
“See? This is exactly why I need you. Because my powers of persuasion kind of suck.”
I shake my head. “I can’t believe you’re doing this.”
“Doing what?”
“Giving me the employment equivalent of a mercy fuck.”
Jesús’ mouth hangs open for a moment. He takes off his glasses. “Right,” he says. “Really?”
Oh shit. I’ve hurt his feelings. “That’s what it feels like.”
He swallows. “I didn’t mean it to come across that way.”
“I know...but...”
Hello again, Reality. It’s all very well humping like crazed-weasels when you’re insulated in a poorly written penthouse, but when you step out of the bubble you’re right back where you started. And worse off.
He wanders over to a sideboard, where a champagne bottle is waiting on ice. “Does this mean we can still get shitfaced?” he says, but I’ve screwed everything up. And so has he. He’s so bad at being rich. He wants to fix everything with money and has no idea how it looks when he does so.
I want to cry, but I’m not going to. I take the glass he hands me and swallow half of it in one gulp.
“Okay,” he says, eventually, breaking the awful silence. “I admit it. I wanted to make it up to you.”
“You don’t have to,” I say, looking at the floor. “There’s nothing to...”
“...there is,” he interrupts. “You were right.”
I shake my head.
“Kate, look at me. You were right. Once I started writing I couldn’t stop. I started seeing sales figures I didn’t think were possible and, I don’t know, I guess it was just my instinct to see how far I could push it. It was like I was possessed – obsessed. And I just...” He sighs. “I forgot that you were supposed to be part of my life.”
I chug the rest of the glass. Not gonna cry. Not gonna cry.
“And I’m sorry,” he says.
Yeah. Okay. Gonna cry now.
“That’s all I wanted,” I say. “You stupid fucking asshole.”
“Really?” he says. Oh shit – this is the trouble when men get in touch with their feminine side. They don’t realise that half the reason women wear mascara is so we don’t cry. Jesús looks like Alice Cooper.
“Yes really. I don’t want a job from you, you moron.”
“But you were so mad that I didn’t cut you in...”
I laugh and cry all at once. “Oh please. I’m over it. I’ve wasted enough of my life being bitter.”
He reaches for my hands. “Are you sure? Because I want to make it up to you. I want you back. I want you to stay.”
“I was planning to do that anyway.”
“You were?”
“If you want me to.”
He nods. “Oh my God, yes – please.” He kisses me and we’re all snot and tears and mascara. “My life is so fucking boring without you.”
“Liar,” I say. “You’ve been on Oprah.”
“Okay,” he says, pushing my hair back from my face with both hands. “I admit, that bit was kind of fun.”
“See? How am I supposed to compare to that?”
He grins and pulls the blinds closed. “Oh, I’m sure you’ll think of something.”
*
Casper Neigh continued to howl in public and yell at anyone who didn’t want to talk at length about his sexual proclivities. Eventually he was arrested for public indecency for lifting his leg and sniffing every time he saw a fire hydrant. His protests that he was really a ‘folf’ sadly didn’t cut any ice with the authorities. And to add insult to injury, they didn’t even ask him what a folf was.
*
After a brief relapse into the delusion that she was a Hello Kitty backpack, Alicia Neigh made as good a recovery as can be expected and returned to Tumblr blogging about British actors. Shortly after she succumbed to the common Tumblr side effect of imagining she had multiple personalities. Alicia now shares her ‘headspace’ with Doctor Who, a toddler known only as ‘Pinku’, an angry gay elf with a drink problem and various characters portrayed on stage and screen by Tom Hiddleston.
*
On returning to Florida, Teresa West gave up macramé and took up puppetry. She now tours progressive schools giving sex education sock-puppet shows featuring such characters as Regina the Vagina and Enis the Penis. She still lives near Tallahassee with her husband and two boyfriends, and still has no idea that neither of her boyfriends are really vegan.
*
Following Crispian Neigh’s death, Claudia Neigh took up drinking, eating Doritos in her dressing gown and watching mindless television. Strangely, in the face of criticisms that they have never done a single thing to contribute to the advancement or education of a single soul on earth, it was the Kardashians who saved Claudia’s sanity. It was while watching their reality show that Claudia realised she was a cold, empty-hearted, money-hungry fame hag with a litter of dumb and unpleasant children.
In that instant of self-revelation, Claudia realised there was mad bank to be made out of spreading her misery and her dysfunctional hellspawn all around the world. These days she can usually be found attempting to sneak hidden night vision cameras into her children’s’ bedrooms.
*
Timothy Grope took his daughter back East and attempted to nurture her out of her illiterate nature by reading her bedtime stories every single night.
Happily, this worked a treat and little Celestia Grope is regularly top of the class in spelling. At eight years old she won a prize for Best Original Short Story with a whimsical (and semi-autobiographical) tale about an enchanted elevator, in which she didn’t steal a single character from Twilight. Seriously – eight year olds can grasp that much.
&
nbsp; She was forced to conquer her juicebox habit at the urgings of her dad and her dentist, but her strong views on broccoli and other brassicas remain unchanged.
*
Hanna Squeal-Neigh still labours under the delusion that she is a learned woman of letters. During her time in prison for attempted armed robbery, Hanna started a book club and attempted to improve the minds of her fellow inmates, only to cause problems when it turned out that the book she had mistaken for Tess Of The D’Urbervilles on that particular week turned out to be Eat, Pray, Love.
The inmates subsequently rioted in protest and staged a full-scale book burning in the exercise yard. Thankfully nobody was killed, although Hanna did sustain severe damage to her latest manicure and she had been forced to trade her last nail-buffer in return for not being shanked the next time she entered the shower block.
On leaving prison, Hanna was surprised to discover that her second husband did actually sort of love her, and these days she spends her days indulging in unexciting S&M and increasingly ill-advised cosmetic procedures. She eventually made up with her mother-in-law and these days spends her spare time bothering television executives with the reasons why she should have her own reality show.
The sad thing is, she’ll probably get one.
*
Kate and Jesús – of course - lived happily ever after.
THE END
(And I mean it this time)
Bonus Material
I Read Fifty Shades Freed So You Don't Have To
The trouble with writing parodies of the Fifty Shades trilogy was that I actually had to read the damn books. This was not a pleasant experience, so in the interests of spreading a little happiness, I've decided to share the pain.
Prologue
1. Beach Boredom Bingo
2. La Serveuse A Fait Pipi Dans Votre Verre
3. In Which Ana Shaves Her Crotch
4. It's Only A Small Luxury Yacht, Darling
5. World's Dullest Car Chase
6. Weird Stuff. Butt Stuff
7. Smirking Nine To Five
8. The Couple That Bullies Together...
9. I'm So In Love With The Person I'm Turning You Into
10. A Storm In A Cocktail Glass
11. Rah Rah Ro Ma Ma
12. La Noche Triste
13. Twilight In Aspen
14. Plot? What Plot?
15. Fifty Shades of Brown
16. Careless People
17. Sucking, Expelling, Sucking, Expelling
18. It's A Shame About Ray
19. Masturbation For Dummies
20. A Child Called Shit
21. The One Where He Threatens To Rape Her
22. Revenge Of The Plot
23. Everybody Loves Ana
24. Tell Me Again About The Rabbits, George
25. The Neverending Story
26. Epilogue - Barefoot And Pregnant Ever After
Prologue
Mommy! Mommy! Mommy is asleep on the floor. She has been asleep for a long time. I brush her hair because she likes that. She doesn’t wake up. I shake her. Mommy! My tummy hurts. It is hungry.
Ironically, this baby talk represents the highest standard of English in the entire book. Obviously this can’t last because it’s only a cack-handed flashback to Christian Grey’s Dave Peltzer childhood, which is offered up time and time again as some kind of explanation why he’s such a humourless, charm-free shitstain of a man.
Oh sorry – not a flashback. He’s having a nightmare. And he wakes up screaming “Mommy, Mommy,” only to find Ana leaning over him and then it’s okay again.
Yeah. You know it’s bad when you’ve run out of motherfucker jokes before the prologue is even over.
“Hush, I’m here.” She curls around him, her limbs cocooning him, her warmth leeching into his body, forcing back the shadows, forcing back the fear. She is sunshine, she is light...she is his.
“Please let’s not fight.” His voice is hoarse as he wraps his arms around her.
So. Stone obvious Mommy issues, he has manipulative ‘nightmares’ every time she nips to the loo in the middle of the night and every time they stir from unconsciousness it’s time to pick up the threads of the last inane, pointless argument. Business as usual then.
Chapter One - Beach Boredom Bingo
And we’re back in the company of our favourite stale fart of a girl, the lovely and endlessly tiresome Ana. Oh joy.
I stare up through gaps in the sea-grass parasol at the bluest of skies, summer blue, Mediterranean blue, with a contented sigh.
It should go without saying that if you have three repetitions in your opening sentence, you should probably hand back your English degree.
My husband – my hot, beautiful husband, shirtless and in cut-off jeans – is reading a book predicting the collapse of the Western banking system.
Reader, she married him. Not the sharpest tool in the shed.
They’re currently lolling on a beach in Monaco, a setting apparently so dull that the author immediately decides we need a flashback to something less boring, like the time Christian proposed to Ana. Somehow we cannot figure out that this must have happened in order for her to accept said proposal and for them to now be on their honeymoon, as explained on the previous page.
Aaaand we’re back in the room on the beach. Ana is getting a sunburn. They moo meaningless words at each other in that whole Mr. Grey, Miss Steele thing they used to do. Only now she’s Mrs. Grey, do you see? Isn’t it exciting?
Kill. Me. Now.
He puts sunscreen on her all sexy and undoes her bikini strap. He tells her he would be ‘displeased’ if she went topless on the beach and says he’s not very happy that she’s wearing so little right now. He’s an asshole, but you knew that, right?
Then they go for a swim. Zzzzzz... He carries her into the water.
Several sunbathers on the beach watch with that bemused disinterest so typical, I now realize, of the French, as Christian carries me to the sea, laughing, and wades in.
No, that’s not just the French. Trust me. Also I’m not completely sure that sentence is even English.
Then they get sexy. Yawn.
“Shall I take you in the sea?” he breathes.
You’ve taken in her the C enough times, matey-boy. If this yawnfest is going to pass for any kind of pornography you’d better get with the programme and take her up the A.
“Yes,” I whisper.
Christian pulls away and gazes down at me, his eyes warm, wanting, and amused. “Mrs. Grey, you’re insatiable and so brazen. What sort of monster have I created?”
Who talks like this? And how do we make them stop?
Anyway, they don’t get busy in the sea. Then she drinks some Diet Coke and has another flashback to her wedding day. Once was unfortunate. Twice is just pants-on-head-stupidity.
It’s the worst flashback ever. Kate is being played by a brain-swapped alien who thinks that Christian is great. José (remember him?) turns up to make a limp little Jacob Black speech to Ana and says that he’ll always be there for her when she gets knocked up with a telepathic CGI hellbaby.
Ana stays in her wedding dress (are we still on this flashback?) because Christian has to be the one to take it off her. Then her mother turns up and her stepdad turns up and they all talk about how great Ana is. (Is this the same Ana?) Then they drive away and Mia (Alice) catches the bouquet and we are still on this flashback?
Yes, we are. And there’s a private plane and Ana is already hissing and spitting because the flight attendant is a pretty brunette. A super start to the marriage.
Private plane, pink champagne. Did I mention he was rich? Ana has some kind of foul Anglophile orgasm over the prospect of visiting London, although given her understanding of English literature she’ll probably be wildly disappointed to discover it’s not populated by Dickens characters and Jack the Ripper.
Then they eat – smoked salmon, roast partridge and potato dauphinoise – and we are still in the fl
ashback. Aaaaaand there’s a bed on the plane.
Finally, we get to the point of the flashback. That was about fifteen pages of utter mimble so that the author could add in another sex scene. Also doesn’t it strike you as perfect that someone like Christian Grey would be so banal as to smirk about the ‘Mile High Club’?
“This is like unwrapping my Christmas presents.” He smiles up at me through his long dark lashes.
“A present you’ve had already...”
He frowns in admonishment. “Oh no, baby. This time it’s really mine.”
You married her, shitnut. You didn’t buy her. Well – sort of. I mean, this is Ana we’re talking about. I notice she got over her dislike of expensive gifts pretty damned skippy.
Reaching up into his second shirt button and mirroring him from earlier, I plant a soft kiss on his chest and I undo each of them and whisper between each kiss, “You. Make. Me. So. Happy. I. Love. You.”