Fifty Shades of Neigh

Fifty Shades of Neigh

The International ‘Erotic’ Bestseller just got 20% cooler

A Parody

by

Anna Roberts

Fifty Shades of Neigh: A Parody

Copyright © 2014 by Anna Roberts.

Smashwords Edition

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

The author acknowledges the copyright of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. Twilight Sparkle, Rarity, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash and all of the other ponies mentioned in this book remain property of their respective owners. Please do not make porn of them, because it is gross.

Introduction

This book is a parody of E.L. James sort-of-original novel Fifty Shades of Grey, which in turn started out life as a Twilight fanfiction entitled Masters of The Universe. This tends to lend a strange, wheels-within-wheels quality to this book, so it’s probably best not to think too much about the meta unless you like giving yourself headaches.

I first read Fifty Shades of Grey in the late spring of 2012 and spent most of the summer with my mouth hanging open. It was a wild thrill ride of a book, full of precipitiously dangling participles, epithets that had been not so much transferred as extraordinarily rendered, and vast sweeps of text in which nothing happened at all.

Despite the quality of the writing Fifty Shades of Grey broke publishing records. The dissection of this cultural phenomenon will probably outlive the book itself as publishing houses scramble to make it happen again. Was it the power of viral marketing? Was it the lure of ‘sexually explicit’ content? Or is the find/exchange function of Ms. James’ computer imbued with powers of marketing voodoo that advertising executives would murder to lay hands on? (There’s a plot for all you budding Dan Browns out there.)

It’s probably safe to assume we will never know. What we do know is that in a short period of time, Fifty Shades of Grey has spawned so many knock-offs they have almost become a subgenre – skinny girl meets rich but damaged guy and cures his issues through the power of repetitive, poorly written sex. In spite of threats of actual physical violence and long, circular conversations about nothing, our heroine sticks with Mr. Rich and Complicated through thick and thin (Mostly thin – like I say, they tend to be skinny.) in the hope of that she will Change Him.

This is one of the main reasons why Fifty Shades of Grey is such a depressing book. The central theme, such as it is, is that if you put up with all the nasty things your weird pervert of a boyfriend wants you to do in bed then eventually he will stop being a weird pervert and become the magical, hand-holding, skipping-through-daisies boyfriend of your dreams.

It’s profoundly depressing that a book that’s been relentlessly sold as empowering and liberating is essentially about a young woman tolerating sex acts that she doesn’t particularly like and would prefer to do differently.

Even more depressing is the abusive nature of the central relationship. He treats her like property to be beaten whenever he feels anger and she treats him like a psychological puzzle that she can heal through the magic of love, which is an effective enough recipe for misery even when you’re with a man who doesn’t threaten you with violence when you attempt to pay for breakfast. (Totally happens, by the way. Chapter twenty-four.)

When you are with a man like Christian Grey, this kind of a relationship is a recipe for more than just misery. It’s a recipe for hospital visits, restraining orders and in the worst-case scenario, a sad, toe-tagged trolley ride to the morgue. Totally happens, by the way - at least twice a week in the UK alone.

There are many other smaller ways in which Fifty Shades of Grey is a depressing book. It’s depressing for fans of Thomas Hardy or sixteenth century choral music, or for whatever gorgeous cheekboned Hollywood creatures are going to have to attempt to utter lines like Why do some people like cheese and other people hate it? Do you like cheese? without going into some kind of existential tailspin about the whole nature of their profession.

For me as a writer, the existential tailspin set in around the first line of page one of Fifty Shades of Grey. This was a book that made the English language scurry under the bed and start hissing like a cat threatened with the ironing spray bottle. When combined with recycled cardboard characters and a vague stain of a plot, the butt-ugly prose was enough to send this writer scurrying under the duvet with a large bottle of mother’s ruin and no plans to emerge any time soon.

So, for various reasons - the main one being my liver and the fact of only having one of said vital organ - I decided not to do that and instead opted to cheer myself by writing this parody. I hope it jollies you up a bit too.

Bronies – A Brief Glossary of Terms

Brony – An adult male fan of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. Bronies tend to fall into the ‘18-35 year old male demographic’ so beloved of television executives. Nobody knows exactly what Dark Arts were employed to make a cartoon for pre-teen girls so appealing to this coveted group but a great many chickens and goats have been sacrificed in search of this secret.

Brohoof – A fistbump between bronies.

Clopping – Brony slang for masturbation.

Rule Thirty-Four – According to the unwritten Rules of the Internet, Rule Thirty Four states that ‘If it exists, someone has made pornography of it.’ This is why you need safe search on even while Googling something as seemingly innocent as Care Bears or Thomas the Tank Engine. You can probably figure out for yourself how that applies to My Little Pony – and yes, it is every bit as horrible as it sounds.

Chapter One

Are You Gay, Mr Neigh?

It’s Monday. I wake up in a bad novel, shower and hurry to the mirror to describe myself. My hair has dried in a weird shape and I’m supposed to be studying for finals but all I can think about is how my blue eyes are too big for my face and my nose is too small. Damn Katherine Hannigan for subjecting me to this unspecified ordeal - this was supposed to be her interview, but she’s come down with the flu just to spite me and so I’m going to have to go and interview this Crispian Neigh guy. Me - mousy, skinny, long legged, full-lipped me. I don’t even know what to say to a man.

Kate is lying on the couch, self-medicating with a cocktail of blended Scotch and Nyquil. Even with pink edged nostrils and eyes to match she is still more attractive than me.

Shit, what happened to your hair? she coughs. You look like a Bee Gee.

Is that a sex thing? I don’t know. She’s more worldly than me too, although not as deep, obviously. Kate, I don’t think I can go through with this - I don’t know the first thing about interviewing people.

Hanna, let’s be honest, says Kate, sitting up and wiping her nose. You don’t really know much about anything. In fact, it’s safe to say if I didn’t know any better I’d say you’d been raised in a Skinner box. She holds up a hand. And yeah - I know - you don’t know what that is either.

I’m not good with men, I whisper, biting my lip. I don’t know what to say to them.

Kate sighs, exasperated. Look, I wrote you a list of questions. You walk into the room, shake his hand, say ‘Hi, I’m Hannelore Squeal from the student newspaper,’ and try not to faceplant, assplant or fling yourself through a plate glass window, okay?

It is for me. I’m so hideously uncoordinated…

…like that chick from the teenie vampire books. Yeah. We know, Hanna - we know. You should probably get that looked at - maybe it’s some kind of inner ear thing.

But I don’t know anything about Crispian Neigh, I plead. The words ‘inner ear’ bounce around inside my skull like an annoying narrative device, as yet ephemeral but soon to be given flesh, form and hula skirts. Probably. Every time I say the name ‘Crispian Neigh’ out loud I feel a ripple of foreshadowing and have to sit down with my head between my knees.

I wouldn’t do this for anyone else but you, Kate, I say. You’re my dearest friend - a strong, determined, beautiful, independent woman…

She waves a hand and picks up her phone. Hanna - save the plastic sisterhood for your book club or your travelling fucking pants or whatever. Can you just go now please?

As I walk out the door I hear her say Hey shitlord, what up? Yeah - she’s gone. She laughs throatily, so brave in spite of her illness. "Bring the bong…I know right? Can you believe people spent the Nineties dropping this shit? – the comedown is a bitch."

She’s so sassy. I love her. She’s so tenacious that I know she will make an amazing journalist, even if she is annoyingly pretty in that blonde, obvious way that men seem to love so much.

I drive to the headquarters of Crispian Neigh’s global enterprise. It’s a building so large that I need to consult a thesaurus to describe it. After lengthy consideration I settle on ‘edifice’, replace my well-thumbed copy of Roget’s in the glovebox of Wendy, my trusty VW Beetle, and walk trepidatiously (nice) through the soaringly high glass doors of the steel and glass edifice.

Well, I say walk. Actually I fall. I don’t even get six steps across the polished sandstone floor before I trip over my own feet and skid, face down, to an ungracious halt in front of the expansive semi-circular reception desk. Which is also sandstone, by the way. White sandstone. (In case you were wondering.)

Oh my goodness. Are you okay? When I look up a blonde head is peering over the edge of the desk at me. The blonde head is attached to a blonde woman and her body is dressed in the sharpest suit and whitest shirt I have ever seen in my life. She is immaculate – Stepford perfect. Her hair is really tidy too.

There’s a sign, she moues apologetically, pointing to the wall behind me. I turn and look and see a yellow sign reading WARNING - FLOOR MAY BE SLIPPERY.

It’s okay, I murmur, getting to my feet. I’m always falling over.

Oh, she says, blinking her heavily mascaraed eyelashes at me. Is it an inner ear thing?

I try not to glare at her and wonder speculatively if blondes like her and Kate have some kind of hive mind thing going on. No, I say, trying not to sound snippy. It’s a minor character trait.

She quirks a well-groomed eyebrow. Looked pretty major to me, she says. If you’d slid any faster you’d have cracked your skull on the desk. Are you here to see someone?

I draw myself up to my full five foot six (Most of which is in my legs - I have disproportionately long legs. It’s probably why I’m always falling over and my lankiness is probably why men find me so sexually unappealing, especially when I wear a short skirt.) and say, Yes. I’m here to see Crispian Neigh.

Okay, she half-sneers. Go take a seat. What did you say your name was again?

Hannelore Squeal, I say, flushing scarlet. My mother likes European names.

You’re not on the list, Ms. Squeal. She trails the tip of an impeccable black enamel fountain pen down the page as she reads; I suppose at least she doesn’t move her lips too, although she’s probably trained herself not to do that, so as not to wear away her lip-gloss too quickly.

I’m here for Katherine Hannigan, I explain. The journalist. She can’t make it - she’s sick.

Little Miss Stepford curls her lip. Some journalist.

What do you mean? I ask, immediately defensive of Kate. Kate is my best friend, even if she does make me do her interviews for her when she knows I’m not good at conversation, or social cues, or anything that isn’t curling up with a book really.

Well, you know. The receptionist shrugs padded shoulders. I thought the whole deal with journalism was to ‘Cover the story,’ even if you’re being shot at, chased by the government, sued by Scientologists or just in a self-induced chemical funk so terrible that you’re seeing giant reptiles slithering all over the blood-drenched carpets of a fancy Las Vegas casino bar, but…you know. Whatever. I’m sure Ms. Hannigan knows what she’s doing, careerwise.

I don’t like her. Can I have a glass of water? I ask.

There’s a cooler, she says, pointing.

I glare and go to get up, but she waves me back down. Yeah, on second thoughts stay put, she mutters. I don’t want you walking on that floor - you’re a lawsuit waiting to happen.

I’m sorry to be so much trouble, I whisper, staring at my shoes. My face is aflame and I want to die.

When I look up, Miss Stepford catches my eyes and laughs - the kind of bright, merry, carefree laugh that only a blonde can produce. Oh honey, she chuckles. You’re so not sorry - you’re not sorry at all. She lifts the phone on her desk. Still or sparkling? Ice or no ice?

Opposite me, the elevator doors ding open. She replaces the phone without dialling as two men step out of the elevator, one tall, handsome and African-American and the other white, short and somewhat pudgy.

You gotta keep active, Neigh, the African-American is saying. Keep up the movement and you’ll be back on the golf course in no time.

As he speaks I realise that the other man is none other than Crispian Neigh. I get to my feet to introduce myself, trip over the strap of my satchel and faceplant at his feet.

This is Ms. Squeal, explains Miss Stepford. She’s filling in for Ms. Hannigan, from the student newspaper.

He looks down at me. Holy crap, he’s so young. He can’t be much more than twenty-five. He’s wearing a Hawaiian silk shirt open over a Gadsen flag t-shirt that reads DON’T FRIENDZONE ME. He’s cute, kind of quirky. He wears one of those grey fedora hats with the white pin stripe, with unruly copper coloured hair and bright brown eyes that regard me shrewdly. It’s the strangest hat I have ever seen.

Hi, he mumbles, holding out a hand and helping me up. I’m Crispian Neigh; I have ethnic friends.

Dude, I’m not your friend, says his companion. I’m your proctologist, although I guess I can see where the confusion occurred. I mean, we’re kind of intimate in a…you know…kind of way. He raises two fingers in an inexpressively expressive gesture that I don’t understand, being as sexually naive as I am. He nods to Crispian Neigh and says; "Just keep applying the medication. And please try to lose weight."

I’ll see you on the golf course! says Crispian Neigh, as the doctor walks away. They let them now, you know, he tells me. Play golf. Like Tiger Woods.

The receptionist lets out a little groan under her breath. Oh my God, she groans.