Fifty Shades of Grey summary

Ana holds it together enough to ask Mr. Grey to do a photoshoot for Kate’s article, and he agrees. The girls get José to do the shoot – Ana’s photographer friend who she’s always kind of known has a thing for her.

After the shoot, Mr. Grey asks Ana for a coffee. She can barely speak – but mumbles out a no. But he’s forceful, and she consents.

Christian flies Ana to his Seattle home in his helicopter, pours her a glass of wine, and fetches a document from his study. It’s a non-disclosure agreement for her to sign.

He also needs to show her a few things – including what he calls his playroom. It’s a softly lit space in leather and wood, with a huge mahogany cross on the wall. There are long, beautiful poles, there are paddles and whips, there are feathers.

It’s been a night of firsts for Christian as well as Ana. Despite his sexual experience, he’s never slept alongside a partner before. In fact, he’s never had vanilla sex either.

Over time, their relationship deepens, and Ana learns a little more about the smolderingly intense and mysterious man who has taken her virginity. Now 27, his first sexual encounter was with an older woman, a friend of his mother’s, at the age of just 15 – a relationship in which he was submissive, and she was dominant.

Still unsure about her feelings, Ana goes to visit her mother in Savannah, Georgia. She and Christian email during the trip – he’s upgraded her to first class, of course – and he mentions he’s having dinner with an old friend, whom Ana correctly deduces is Mrs. Robinson, her name for his older former lover.

He reiterates that their sexual relationship is long over – and that she did him good, helping him to find himself despite his troubled childhood. But Ana still feels a confusing mixture of jealousy and anger – and she expresses this in her emails.