THE FIFTY SHADES OF GREY EFFECT

THE FIFTY SHADES OF GREY EFFECT

I’ve talked to you extensively about all three of the books. I think there is going to be something called “TheGrey Effect” (←Spanish Tango from Zorro) and that isn’t something that’s going to go away for a very long time.  (You'll find music throughout here; just hover your mouse over to find the links.)

We, in America like to have things wrapped up in neat packages. Things, whatever they may be that are not conventional usually don’t fit in ordinary packages. I believe “50 Shades of Grey” series fit in that category.  But I think the same conclusion must be true for other countries as well, because though people want to know what this book is about, and want to read it, and I’m sure many have read it, so few want to admit it in the open that they actually have read it, and liked it.

Luckily I have no such reservations, and I’ve been writing about them. But then again, I’m my own person, and am known for exercising my freedom of speech.

There are many reasons why I find it important to speak about these wonderful books as I was sad to have read the last in the series (it would have been great if there were 12 of them like the Sookie Stackhouse Series (a.k.a.True Blood) (← Bad Things by Jace Everett), or 4 very large books as in the Twilight series) (←Supermassive Black Hole by Muse). We’ll be content with the existing three, and hopefully someday E.L. James will revisit them again. I’m itching to write fan fiction to continue their adventures, or start from the beginning and write from Christian’s perspective, if not for you, for me, and per some of my friends’ requests. It’d be a shame to not to continue the stories of characters I’ve come to love who are larger than life.

I’m the first one to read these books among my girlfriends. Some are still reading them, and they’re actively talking about them. In fact, following was the scene at my house yesterday:

The doorbell was insistently ringing, our dog Shelby barking territorially at the visitor, and I ran from my office to the door muttering “I’m coming! Keep your panty hose on!” I open the door to my best friend’s tapping high heeled boots at the door. She has her wallet in one hand, and her unlit cigarette in the other.  Without a preamble she says:

“Do you know how many messages I left you this week?”

My mouth automatically answers without consulting with my brain and I blurt out, “yeah, fourteen!”

“Oh my God, woman! You knew I left you fourteen messages, making me feel like stalker and you don’t have the courtesy to return them? Am I gonna stand at the door here?”

I gather my manners open the door wider and let her in, and, point to the back yard just in case she wants to smoke. She comes into the kitchen first, and asks, “You have Earl Grey çay?”

“Only the best!” I say, “from London!” I point to the cabinet where I have my large box of loose tea leaves are sitting. She puts my double boiler tea maker on the stove, putting some loose leaves on the top. Now we’re ready to sit in the back.

“Why haven’t you been answering my calls? When you go in your frigging writing mode, I don’t get to see you, or talk to you. Are you translating a book?”

“Not this week,” I say, “It’s the AIMS tests all this week, I have to help my son with his math, and it’s consuming all my spare time.”

“Wow!” she says mockingly, “Don’t you go to the bathroom to pee? You couldn’t take the phone with you for 2 minutes to give me a call? Do you know how much gas costs? Its four bucks a gallon! I had to drive to get to you here nearly an hour in that traffic!”

“Stop complaining!” I say, “I make that trip to you every other week for your tea party, if not every week! And besides, the bathroom is the only place I have privacy! I don’t want to be calling you then.”

“You know what? I bet you’re reading a book even then!” How does she know that? She sees the flicker on my face. “I’m right, aren’t I?” I don’t respond, I don’t want to lie to my best friend. I shrug apologetically.  “God, woman! All I ask is two minutes of your time!” She then sighs. “What was the name of that book? I was talking to some friends and wanted to tell them about it, but I didn’t remember the name…  You know the ones we’ve talked about.”

I realize that she made this entire trip to find out about the book, because I haven’t told her what happened in the third book! I am grinning like the Cheshire cat ear to ear, and say “well well, turn me upside down and paint me blue! You came all this way to find out about the third book!”

“If you don’t answer your frigging phone,” she mock scolds me, “I have to come here to find out!” You see, my friend and I bonded over tea. Even over the phone, we're each having our tea, chitchatting. She's not a reader by any stretch of imagination, but she's fascinated when I talk about them; she loves to hear the stories of various books I read. So, I talk to her about some of the books, and she loves to hear and questions like its her version of soap opera or the local gossip. We both love tea; we find it relaxing, and somehow when you are in the pretense of doing something else, you can talk even about yourself, about the books, and we end up having a good time. In fact, I get some of my writing material from her, like I'm doing now. We’ve been best friends for over 10 years, and I'm sure her antics will provide me with a lot more to write about!

She goes back to the kitchen and pours the hot water into the loose tea leaves, and lets its brew while getting the thin tea cups ready. We both know each other’s kitchens well, and are comfortable in doing whatever needs to be done. My best friend is 12 years older than I am, but emotionally, she’s about 10 years younger, and behaves it too.

“So, what’s up, you’re mad at me or something?” she asks concerned.

“Of course not! I’d tell you if I was just to get it off my chest. Why do you ask?”

“Well, only because I noticed that you gave me a hug, but you didn’t kiss me on both the cheeks!” (European tradition, a hug and a kiss on both cheeks.)

“Because I’m not in a kissing mood, you misinterpreted that how?” I ask...

“So we’re cool?” she asks concern lacing her voice.

“Of course we are. Calling you actually was in my’ to do’ list. Your phone calls were kinda getting annoying,” I smiled and pointed her to my printed “to do” list taped to my calendar.

“Wow! I’m item #7 on your list!”

By then I notice the slight change in her hair. “Did you put in some PINK in your hair?”

“You like? Apparently it’s the new thing my hair dresser said!” She had slight pink streaks on some of her curls, and it suits her.

“It’s perfectly you!” I say,” goes along well with the new boobs!”  Actually, her boobs aren’t new, she had a reduction to DD; had been complaining about back pain. We grab our tea cups, and depart to the back patio.

“What?” she grins genuinely, “my DDs are still bigger than your single Ds!”

“Oh please!” I say, “After all the back pain complaints you’ve had, I have no desire to match wits or boobs with you!”

“Are you still having pains?” I asked concerned.

“The scars are hurting sometimes,” she says, then pulls up her shirt “let me show you…”

“Good God, woman, easy there for a minute! I have to live in this neighborhood. Show them inside! I don’t want to give a peep show to my neighbors!” She does. I see the scars. They’re healing, but visible. It’s like going to a doctor, and showing them the kind of boob you want and he moves thing about on your surface, and shapes it, and bam! There you have new updated smaller breasts. “It’s not easy to be a woman!” she sighs, “the maintenance will kill you!”

“Don’t you wear a bra?” I ask after she lifted her blouse.

“I hate them! They hurt my back!” she answers.  “Well,” I smirk, “my congratulations to your plastic surgeon! He’s done a good job! They look great on the surface!”

“You wanna go to lunch? Let’s go to the food court at the mall! Fast and easy,” she says before I can say no.  I drive. We get some Chinese food sit at one of the tables. She notices a Filipino woman who is in her late 60s or early 100s I can’t tell. She’s wearing a pair of low hanging yoga pants, a tank top showing her midriff, and clearly wearing thongs. My friend gets up and moves to the lady smiling, “you got them fixed? Did you? They look great!” What’s she talking about? Then I notice; everything else in her body is sagging except the boobs. The lady blushes. She understands what my friend was asking. “Oh, we’re Christian! We don’t alter our bodies!” the woman answers.

“Oh, come now!” my friend says, “If that was true, you wouldn’t be making an attempt to show them! I’m actually happy for you! I was paying you a compliment. My friend and I noticed that you’ve had your breasts done, and they look marvelous!” I was mortified. I don’t want to talk to a stranger about her altered boobs even if they are the perkiest things in her aging body! I must be beet red to my hairline, and hoping the ground would swallow me up, though that would be impossible in the second floor food court! The woman pays attention to my friend then, and smiles, “you had yours done too!” She says, “yes,” my friend says proudly, “though mine is reduction, yours seem to be check ins! Mine are carry ons!” They depart in happy terms, and my friend comes back to the table. I’m beyond mad. “What is it with you women? Granted that I'm a woman too, but I'm baffled with the kind of women I surround myself with,” I say, she looks confused, “what?” she says sincerely.

“Whenever I’m around with a good friend, or even my sister, someone embarrasses me like that.” My friend grins, “what did she do?”

“Who?” I ask.

“Your sister of course!” reminding me of another embarrassing memory.

“Yes! We were at a crowded restaurant. She saw an older woman who looked remarkably beautiful, especially in the boobs department,” glancing at her, I asked, “Let me ask you something, do women check each other out like that?”

“You know we do! Go on!” she coaxed the story out of me, “So, she went up to their table, and turned to her husband said, “Sir, I want to congratulate you on your beautiful companion.” She then turned to the woman and said, ‘ma’am, my sister and I’ pointing at me at our table, ‘couldn’t help but notice what a beautiful woman you are. My sister and I were wondering, what you did to keep your breasts so beautiful? What’s your secret? Could you let us in on it? Is it the kind of bra you used, or do you have a certain regimen to keep them looking young and perky?’ I was mortified then. Because her husband was grinning like an idiot, and she was amused and I was looking for a hole crawl in! But to my surprise, she explained that she used cold compresses all her adult life, and that she always used a good support bra, and gave us a tip; she said she had her bras altered by having the tips cut off giving access to her nipples and making the outward appearance look even better! “

My best friend laughed, shook her head. “I think sometimes you can be uptight, and I think that gives us courage to do what we’re doing when we’re around you. It’s an automatic response. But then, you surprise us by asking questions about sex and kiss, and shaving, and throw us completely off!”

“Gee, thanks. Great to know that I bring the idiot out of all of you!” I say, but I’m amused too.

“So, tell me, will you be writing a continuation to the story? It’d be great if it was from the Christian’s point of view!”

“Fan fiction?” I ask, “yes, why not?” she says.

“You know there is a lot of critics, calling it ‘mommy porn’, and how it’s a bad influence on people because it talks about bonding, and BDSM which are undesirable for most people.”

“F*ck them! When did what other people say ever stop you doing what you want to do or say? Besides, I love “love”, you love “love”, and everyone wants to hear about love. Especially women! It’s about time someone wrote something different about love! Just because we’re moms, and that we have the battle scars of having children, or that we’re married, don’t mean we’re dead, and we can’t enjoy our lives. It’s especially good to know that we can enjoy every aspect of our lives. Besides, if my phone calls are going to be screened by your voicemail, I’d like to know it’s for a good cause!”

“Maybe I will. But that means I have to research to be able to effectively write about it.”

“Make sure you put it in practice! It’s the best part!” she says making me blush all the way to my hairline almost choking on the noodles, I reach for my bottle. Seeing my nearly choking response, she smiles and says, “You really are a prude! But still my best friend…” shaking her head.

I call this the “Grey Effect”. (←I've got you Under my Skin by Michael Buble) Let's face it: Christian and Ana got under our skin! People react to their story in ways I never imagined including myself. Love, lust, and relationships (←Sex on Fire by Kings of Leon) are topics we already talk about – around the cooler at work, when you go out for a drink with your friends (whatever you’re drinking; I drink tea, and Pepsi, my friends love their margaritas and wine), or get together, or even talk on the phone. What’s so bad about a book trilogy containing topics people know and talk about already anyway? This is girl talk…

So, here I am deciding to write a fan fiction version of 50 Shades of Grey from Christian’s point of view once a week for all those who like this couple. Hope you'll like it. I’ll post my first edition before the end of this week.

Eminé 

(Please feel free to post a comment. Thank you for stopping by)

I already have several chapters posted for you. I'll try to post at least one chapter a week. I'd love to do more, but this is all the time I have to devote to it so far. Links for the first two chapters are listed below:


Fifty Shades of Grey Effects - Part II (NEW)
Christian and Anastasia - FanFiction - Chapter I
Christian and Anastasia - FanFiction - Chapter II
Christian and Anastasia - FanFiction - Chapter III (NEW!)
Fifty Shades of Grey Effect - Part II (NEW)
Christian and Anastasia - FanFiction - Chapter IV (NEW!)
Christian and Anastasia - FanFiction - Chapter V (NEW)!
Christian and Anastasia - FanFiction - Chapter VI (New)!
Christian and Anasia - FanFiction - Chapter VII (New)!
Christian and Anastasia - FanFiction - Chapter VIII (New!
Christian and Anastasia - FanFiction - Chapter IX (Newest)!