Fifty Writers on Fifty Shades of Grey by Lori Perkins Page A

voluntarily rub baby oil into your blistered bottom. Outside of bed, he’ll shower you with first-class plane seats and first-edition books.
    Christian is neither a hypocrite nor a liar. You
know
he’s going to hurt you. The only issues in question are when, how, and where—all of which you ultimately get to decide.
    Christian isn’t afraid to commit. He won’t blink about introducing you as his girlfriend. You will meet his mother on the Morning After, albeit by happenstance, and find yourself dining
en famille
with his parents, brother, and baby sister before the week is out. Sure, he’ll try to finger you beneath the table linens and pitch a pouty fit later because you snapped closed your thighs, but then again, nothing in life is perfect.
    Lastly but in no way least, he works for a living. He’s not some trust fund brat with endless time on his hands to pursue his perverse passions. We’re not precisely certain of the nature of his work but it involves overseeing a great many varied business interests and taking a great many 24/7 phone calls andemploying a cadre of A-list lackeys, most of whom, like him, seem to have no need for sleep.
    True, Christian may not be the most … emotionally available man, yet neither is he playing hard-to-get. Not only does he admit to being “beguiled,” but later, in chapter 23, he goes much farther. “I don’t want anyone but you. Haven’t you worked that out yet?”
    Only apparently Ana hasn’t worked that out yet, certainly not by the end of the first book. Her final flight is not so much a response to the brutality of the belting, which she expressly demands, as it is a rejection of her “inner goddess” in favor of her safely familiar “subconscious.” Above all, her decision to leave is a reaction to her own pervasive anxieties about not measuring up.
    But then, whether we’re newly minted college graduates or mega moguls, almost-virgins or sexual sophisticates, “love makes fools of us all,” as Shakespeare pointed out centuries ago. Fortunately, E. L. James has given Ana and Christian—and us—not a single book but a trilogy in which to work out a better balance between dark and light, punishment and reward, vanilla and BDSM—and selfishness and selflessness.
    Because while love will always hurt, for Christian and Ana and, indeed, for most of us, it will always be worth it.

    HOPE TARR earned a master’s degree in developmental psychology and a PhD in education, both from the Catholic University of America, only to come to terms with the truth: she wasn’t interested in analyzing people or teaching them. What she wanted was to write about them! Today Hope is the author of nearly twenty historical and contemporary romances for multiple publishers,including Penguin, Harlequin, Medallion Press, and, most recently, her Suddenly Cinderella contemporary romance series with Entangled Publishing. Her nonfiction publishing credits span the spectrum from
Baltimore Magazine
, EuropeUpClose.com, and BootsnAll.com to academic journals such as
The Journal of Clinical Psychology
. Visit Hope online at www.HopeTarr.com , www.WriterNYC.com , and www.LadyJaneSalonNYC.com , as well as on Facebook and Twitter (@HopeTarr).

JENNIFER ARMINTROUT

Every Breath You Take
    “Please don’t hit me,” I whisper, pleading
.
    —E. L. James,
Fifty Shades of Grey
    WHY CAN’T MY HUSBAND BE MORE LIKE CHRISTIAN GREY?
    —Jenny Isenman,
Huffington Post
    O N FEBRUARY 12, 2012, dangerously misguided young women took to their Twitter accounts to praise Chris Brown, the pop star best remembered for beating up his much more famous girlfriend, Rihanna, than for any talent of his own. They expressed such sentiments as “chris brown your sexy you can punch me in the face anyday” [
sic
] and “I know Rihanna didn’t like it much, but Chris brown you can punch me in the face all you want” [
sic
]. These tweets were widely copied and reported and decried by internet media, because we’renot