Fifty Shames of Earl Grey: A Parody (15 page)

On the helicopter flight back to Seattle later in the evening, Earl finally brings up the one topic we avoided while on the island. “You read through the quiz again on the boat, but still haven’t filled it out.”

Uh-oh.
“I know, Mr. Grey.”

He pauses. “I don’t think it’s necessary any longer,” he says finally.

“Really?”

“You’re not like my other LARPers, Anna,” he says. “What we have together is different. It’s more like . . .”

“Love?” I say.

“Exactly,” he says, beaming at me.

Instead of being reassured about our relationship status, however, I’m worried. Can someone change so completely over the course of a few days? Is that how love works? Maybe if we were in a romantic comedy. To me, it feels more like we’re in a tragedy.

“What if you’re not the freak, Mr. Grey? What if I’m the freak?”

“Did you like being tied up last night?” he asks.

I shrug. “It was fun, except for the dead bird.”

“It’s just a taste of what you can expect in the world of erotic live-action role playing,” he says. “Except for the dead bird, of course.”

“That makes me feel a little better,” I say.

“I’d still like to do a BDSM scene with you,” he says.

“Fine,” I say. Can a role-playing scene get any stranger than any of the other things we’ve done this week?

Earl shakes his head. “I’m afraid you won’t accept me once you see how deviant my tastes are . . .”

“I would prefer to see the real Earl Grey, not the Earl Grey you think I want to see,” I say. “You’re right—we don’t need the quiz. I’m not just some random woman you’ve met through Craigslist. But I don’t want you to think you have to change for me.”

Earl stares at me with his gray eyes for what seems like an eternity. “I love you, Anna,” he says. “Unconditionally.”

He’s just too good looking to say no to. I can’t quit him, even if I tried. Mostly because he would stalk me to the ends of the earth, but still.

“And I . . .” I know the words, but I’ve never said them out loud to anyone before. Not even to my family. Earl’s eyes are transfixed on me. Instead of giving me the confidence I need, they’re making me nervous.
It’s okay, Anna. You can do this.
“Mr. Grey . . . Earl . . . I love y—”

Before I can finish my sentence, our helicopter crashes into the Space Needle. Everything goes black.

Chapter Twenty-three

I
OPEN MY EYES, and find myself eye level with my mother’s bare mammaries. It’s like being born and going straight for the teat, only I’m twenty-one and WHAT THE HELL?

“Mom?” I whisper.

She and her husband are standing by my bedside. They are both stark naked. Of course it’s because they’re nudists, but it still shocks me every time I see them. It makes getting through airport security a breeze, they always joke.

Then what has happened rushes back to me. The helicopter crash.
No!

“Earl!” I shout.

“Calm down, Anna,” my stepfather says. “Earl Grey is fine, but you’ve been hurt. You’re in a hospital.”

“The heart monitor, the hospital gown, the hospital bed—now it all makes sense,” I say.

“Your father sent you these flowers,” my mother says, motioning to a marijuana plant on the nightstand. “The good news is, you’re going to make it. Mr. Grey has flown in the best doctors from around the world to treat you.”

Celebrity doctor Drew Pinsky enters the room. Since he’s one of those doctors too good looking to do something so ordinary as wear a white coat, he’s dressed in a tasteful baby-blue button-down shirt with a light-yellow tie. His hair is cropped short and his glasses look like they were designed specifically for his angular face. And his arms! All I can see are his forearms, since his sleeves are rolled up, but RAWR.
He works out.

“I see our little Cinderella is awake,” he says to my mother and stepfather. “Mr. Grey flew me in from Los Angeles to treat you.”

“Sleeping Beauty,” I correct him.

“Excuse me?” he says.

“The fairy tale where the girl falls asleep after biting the poison apple is ‛Sleeping Beauty,’ not ‛Cinderella, ’” I say.

Dr. Drew nods. “Of course. I was just, uh, testing your concussion. Sounds like your brain is functioning normally. Always a good sign.” He flashes a penlight into my eyes. “Dilating normally,” he says.

Dr. Drew smiles at my mother and stepfather. “Could I have a moment alone with your daughter? I need to run over some of the more confidential information relating to her condition. If you can wait outside, I’ll let you know when I’m through.” They nod and leave us alone.

“My pupils are dilating. My memory is fine. So am I free to go? Where’s Mr. Grey?”

“I sent him home once your family got here,” Dr. Drew says. “He stood vigil beside your bed for the past seventy-two hours. And I’d like to keep you under observation at least through the night. You broke several bones in your legs, which we were able to heal using the latest medical technology, but you’ve been in a medically induced coma to treat the swelling in your brain.”

Wow.
“I guess I was really messed up,” I say. And then it hits me: the baby! Our eyes lock.

He lowers his gaze. “We need to talk about something,” he says.

“The baby,” I say.

He nods. “The baby is fine. But . . .”

A wave of relief floods over me. “But what?”

“I ran some tests, and your baby is a sadist. Just like his father.”

“What? How is that possible?” I ask. Also: it’s a baby boy! But also: WTF?

“It’s very unusual this early in a pregnancy for a baby to be kicking, but I felt it, and I’m sure you have too,” he says.

I nod.

“You’re less than a week along. Can you imagine what this baby will do to your insides at nine months?”

Gulp
. “What should I do?”

“First: Does Earl Grey know?”

I shake my head. “I just found out myself days before the accident at the Space Needle.”

“Talk it over with him,” Dr. Drew says. “I’m not saying there isn’t any hope, but I just want you to know the risks involved with carrying Earl Grey’s baby.”

“I don’t know if I can talk it over with him,” I mutter.

“Relationship problems?”

“Where do I begin?” I say. “As you know, he’s a sadist. A controlling, egomaniacal sociopath who treats women as objects to be sexually and psychologically abused.”

“That’s why he’s so attached to his Dungeon Master persona. Role-playing his fantasies is how he handles his sadistic desires. BDSM is a game where he is in total control of himself and the women he invites to play with him. Do you find his antics in the bedroom exciting?”

I sigh. “I do. Sometimes. I mean, I like the idea of an alpha male Dungeon Master tossing me around the bedroom on occasion. But I feel that he’s holding back a part of himself around me, like he’s too ashamed of his own dark impulses to reveal himself fully . . .”

Just then, there’s a knock at the door and Earl steps through. Even though he hasn’t slept for days, he still looks as attractive and alert as ever. He’s dressed in his gray business suit again, which he wears like a boss. I guess that makes sense, because he
is
a boss. “Knock, knock,” he says.

“Mr. Grey!” I scream.

He rushes across the room to me and we greet each other with a long hug that turns into a deep, passionate kiss with his tongue diving down my throat like a seagull lunging for an old french fry on the pavement. That turns into Earl unbuckling his pants, and me untying my hospital gown. “I want to suck your eyeballs,” I tell him.

“So, ah, I’ll just leave you two alone then,” Dr. Drew says, showing himself out.

Earl has stripped his pants and boxers off, and mounts the bed. I am naked underneath him, ready to accept his rigid disco stick. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see that the bathroom door is cracked open slightly. A pair of beady eyes peeks through at us.

“Wait,” I say. “I can see you, Dr. Drew.”

He steps out of the bathroom. “Oh,” he says. “I was just, ah, um, washing my hands before I left. Hospital policy.”

Earl stares him down and Dr. Drew quickly retreats out of the room. “I’ll just tell your parents to wait out here until you’re done,” the doctor says, closing the door.

“Now where were we?” Earl says, pressing his body down on me. “Oh, I remember: we were nearing the city limits of Fucksville,” he says, thrusting into me as my heart monitor beeps wildly out of control.

After we finish fornicating, we dress and let my mother and stepfather back into the room. Thankfully, I don’t have to do any introductions since Earl met them earlier in the day when they first arrived in Seattle. The air is damp with our sweat and our hair is totally JBF, but my mother doesn’t say anything. My stepfather has a knowing smirk on his face, but he doesn’t say anything either. I mean, like nudists can ever take the moral high ground. It’s tough to be judgmental with your balls showing.

Earl says he has to return to work but, really, when does Earl Grey
have
to work? I think he’s just trying to give me time alone with my family. After he leaves, my mother says, “So he’s a cute one.”

I blush.

“A little older than you, but I wouldn’t kick him out of a Burger King bathroom, if you know what I mean,” she says.

My stepfather just laughs. “For what he’s worth, neither would I.” His sudden erection says he’s not kidding.

“Stop, you guys are embarrassing me,” I say.

“We’re just glad you’ve finally met someone,” my mother says.

“Thanks,” I mutter. What would they say if they knew I was pregnant with Earl Grey’s baby? I don’t think they would be so happy for me.

They say they contacted Kathleen and Jin and left them several voice messages. I keep waiting for another knock at the door, for Jin and Kathleen to check in on me and bring me flowers and balloons, but they’re nowhere to be found. I check my cell phone beside my bed: no messages. Even though I’m here with my family, I’ve never felt more alone. Possibly because I’m the only one wearing any clothing. Is this how my life together with Earl will be? Me in the hospital, him visiting to sex me up, and my mother and her d-bag husband keeping me company? I stare at the red roses Earl left by my bedside.
Every rose has its thorn . . .

Chapter Twenty-four

W
HEN I’M FINALLY DISCHARGED from the hospital at noon the next day, Earl Grey picks me up in typical Earl Grey fashion: although he’s ditched the helicopter (which was totaled in the Space Needle crash), he pulls up at the hospital entrance in a NASCAR stock car. “I’m so glad you’re okay,” Earl says, greeting me in front of the hospital. He’s wearing a racing jumpsuit covered in logos of companies he owns. “I thought I lost you.”

I shake my head. “You won’t lose me that easily.”

He kisses me. It’s a deep, long, passionate kiss that seems to last forever, like a low-scoring, tied baseball game that’s gone on for forty-seven innings. An ambulance rolls up behind Earl’s stock car and the ambulance driver lays on the horn. Apparently, Earl is parked in the emergency room lane. I start to break away from his kiss, but Earl sucks harder at my mouth. Our passion cannot be interrupted by rude ambulance drivers and their honky horns and dying patients!

When we finally part lips, the sun is setting and there is a line of sixteen ambulances backed up behind Earl’s stock car. He gives a little wave to the pissed off ambulance drivers, and we hop into his car and speed off into the Seattle traffic.

“So what’s the story behind this car?” I ask once we’re on the road.

“I could tell you it’s a replica of the car Tom Cruise drove in
Days of Thunder
, but that would be a lie,” he says. “It’s the actual car.”

I shake my head. Earl Grey sure has a hard-on for this Tom Cruise guy. “Wow,” I say.

“It’s okay, you don’t have to act impressed,” he says. “I’d rather you be impressed by the size of my cock than by the car I drive.”

“No problem there, Mr. Grey.” I smile. He tilts his head toward me and smiles back. “But keep your eyes on the road, Sir.”