And she keeps going on "let's talk about us", like there's already something going. In the waitress girl's shoes, I'd have replied "there is no us, here's your jacket, now leave me alone". That she's kinda letting herself roped into such a situation, even after the OL just spouts some nonsense about "girlfriend for hire" without any proper explanation and pulling up some contract, acting like she already agreed to it ? Facepalming again.
My god, yes. "I have some work for you after you've done my dry-cleaning for me" as if she's already an employee to mistreat? This woman doesn't read like someone who feels alienated and distrustful of people, she reads like the spoiled 4-year-old daughter of some rich family who doesn't understand that servants are people (or that not all people are servants) as well as being a bit fuzzy on the difference between imagination and reality. She's already sorted out the hired-girlfriend deal in her head, so it's a foregone conclusion that it's happening, and everyone else just needs to catch up and do what they're told already.
Y'know, people (including me) have been referencing Fifty Shades as a kind of disparaging comparison to this, but to be totally frank, Christian Grey was actually way better at this than Gunj, and it made way more sense why an inexperienced, emotionally vulnerable student would be attracted to him. You see, unlike Gunj, Grey spent a non-zero amount of time pretending he wasn't an asshole. He like, took whatserface out on dates, and bought her inappropriately expensive gifts, generally acted like he would be an sensitive, caring lover, and then brought up the bullshit contract as a mandatory prerequisite to a full relationship. It was actually pretty similar to the techniques real cults use to indocrinate new members, so watching it happen was sort of horrifyingly believable. In comparison, Gunj has... Yeah. No.
This still has a chance to be good, maybe? If chapter five is Petai saying "nah, fuck this, I've been recording this whole conversation, so unless you want me to show your boss my new favourite song, here's how this is gonna work" and then settling into the actual relationship where Petai is a way better and more ethical dom and Gunj discovers that she's actually happier as a sub, she was just horrified by the idea of someone else treating her the same way she's been treating other people, and the whole Fifty Shades of Go Fuck Yourself setup in the first few chapters was a deliberate play on bad SM stereotypes building up to their comprehensive subversion. Then it could be pretty great!
On a side note, does anyone else find it kind of boring when rich, domineering characters turn out to be sadists in bed, too? Like, oh wow, the powerful person who likes being in control and having everything done their way also likes being a powerful in-control person who has things done their way during sex. Shocker. Who could have guessed. How could anyone possibly have imagined that this one trait of their public persona was really a reflection of the exact same trait they have on the inside. Not that all rich or influential characters should be uniformly submissive, or anything, it's just that it feels kind of redundant to act like it's a new and interesting element of their character. It's not very interesting when you can look at a character for one scene and know that how they're acting in that moment is how they act and think and live at all times.
last edited at Jan 3, 2016 9:58PM
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