D500

On the fifth day of Gideon my lover said to me

'>

Question for those who know more about the subject - Eva has pushed Gideon to the point that he finally opens up to Dr Peterson about his abuse (with Dr Peterson up to then having assumed it was Gideon's father's suicide that was his problem).

I'm assuming that now Gideon has opened up and admitted to someone other than Eva what happened to him, does this magically heal him or would there be more to his journey to being as normal as an abuse victim can be? Eva has gone through considerable therapy to reach the point she is at but Gideon is only just starting so is it feasible that him opening up to Dr P is THE cure-all for him? He's got to deal with his dad's suicide, his mum's seeming rejection of him by disbelieving him, now the fact that his step-father had no idea and the feeling that if only he had gone to him rather than his mom things would have been very different, whatever the problem is between himself and his half-brother.

Corrine and Anne I'm not including as they are a sideline result of his childhood and family problems and I feel are more based on the women's relationship to him than what shaped his childhood and isolated him from his family, forming his icy character (which he only loses with Eva and Ireland and some of his friends).

On the fourth day of Christmas my lover said to me

'>

Day 3

'>

Quote - Anne Cathrin Chris Jr walked in on them himself... And I guess he stood there for a while before he spoke..... end quote

Chris walked in when they were f***ing, Maggie saw them when Gideon was eating her and that was what Chris commented on in Gideon's office - but I think you are right, he may have stood and watched for a while and is not going to admit that he did so.

If there were to be any repercussions from their meeting in this chapter, Chris has made it clear that he knows what Maggie saw so is possibly stirring Gideon's relationship with Maggie (without realising Gideon has seen what Chris did to Maggie) and not admitting that he saw anything, only that Maggie spilled the beans about what had happened.

Day 2

'>

hi i couldn't find this review .. would you have a link?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/cdp/member-reviews/AAIWGQP3XTK2G/ref=cm_cr_pr_auth_rev?ie=UTF8&sort_by=MostRecentReview

You would think that Eva would know when Gideon's birthday is when she did the research and updating of his personal profile dealing with the Deanna backlash in EWY. She was looking into his personal life (not with other women), but you think that date would have shown up.

In EWY I thought it was something on his business web site that she was dealing with (I need to re-visit -and will revise if necessary), having had difficulty finding the Crossroads Foundation section. In CBY she connected to his social media account (presumably Facebook) but not everyone puts their birthday on there, a considerable amount of my own 'friends' don't, I often only discover it is their birthday when mutual friends post their good wishes - 'friends' in quotes as not everyone who is my friend on FB is someone I know personally as I've gained friends of friends and contacts through the industry I work in.

Being alienated from his family I just imagine Gideon wouldn't have bothered too much about birthday celebrations (although I also think I'd expect Eva to want to know when it is - remember in Fifty Shades Darker how Mia was the one to tell Ana when Christian's birthday was "I knew it. I knew he wouldn't tell you." (I'm not in any way implying any copying or whatever of story line, there are similarities but there are bound to be in this genre of writing.)

I need to re-read each chapter on the day to join in the discussion. Not quite caught up yet.

Is Sylvia deliberately making us 'dislike' Eva a little?

Lots of the Amazon reviewers are seeing Gideon as turning very weak and needy in this book, but that is to be expected. From the age of 5 he's been made to feel rejected; his dad left him by committing suicide, he felt alienated from his mum and step father when his complaints about abuse were disbelieved (okay we now know Chris Snr knew nothing but Gideon has always thought he did); I wonder if Gideon's nightmares started after his dad died - were the feelings of anger, and possibly nightmares, happening from the age of 5 with them becoming worse when he was 11? Could he, during nightmares, have turned on Christopher - bearing in mind he probably never remembered his nightmares Christopher's resentment of Gideon could have started with that. Gideon may well not recall from that time, I feel he did not lie to Eva when he said he didn't know what his nightmare's contained when she first asked him, possibly only recalling the ones he outlined in CBY.

He's relating well to Ireland as he has no reason not to, the only reason for their distance was the difference in age and his leaving home as early as he could. So it has been pretty easy for him to slip into a good relationship with her. Sylvia has told us that Gideon's star sign is Virgo which means he was born between 23 August and 22 September. I'm not sure where we are in the calendar other than that we are somewhere in Aug/Sept as Mark's notice takes him to work for Gideon in October - no idea what notice periods the US have, my own in the UK was once 4 weeks notice (but became 3 months), so assuming it is 4 weeks then we will probably experience Gideon's birthday in the early part of One With You. I know there's nothing in the book about birthdays, so perhaps Gideon has not told Eva when his is as up to now he's probably not bothered about birthdays. So assuming nothing has been said to Eva I wonder if it will be Ireland who tells Eva and a birthday party is organised (possibly a day for Eva to actually return to Gideon meaning they become a team and together beat off all their enemies??

(Sorry, not a lot there about the chapter)

Sylvia is tweeting a picture a day. Unfortunately I can't get pictures to post but hopefully this will link to it

'>

(I click the image link, paste the url and submit but nothing happens, I can't even cancel doing this, the only way I can get back to the forum is to close the forum down and re-open it - if someone who can post images could explain how this forum works for images I'd be grateful.)

RE Gideon promising not to watch the sex tape - I wonder if he will ever tell Eva exactly what he got up to with Anne Lucas (or any of the others he did non-vanilla with) - he really shouldn't watch what she got up to with Brett and she really does not need to know how he acted with others - he should talk to Dr Peterson about it though to 'get it off his chest'. The only problem is that I think Christopher has watched the tape and it would be difficult for Gideon to know that Christopher has seen Eva in action without himself knowing what it was about.

In today's Amazon UK reviews there is an interesting one from 'Tez Miller' who appears to see Gideon in a different light to how most see him. Reviewer has definitely read the book (I suspect a lot of the other 'reviewers' have either not bothered to read it or skimmed through it and missed a lot of the subtle points) but I'm not sure if they have really understood what Sylvia is trying to get across in this story? (I'm very much open to other points of views on this as, of course, I could be misinterpreting the story Sylvia is writing.)

The lead in to the review is "TRIGGER WARNINGS: Rape, sexual abuse, stalking, psychological abuse." You'll need to read the review to see why these words are used. The stalking I think we all understand is actually Gideon's need for Eva to be safe, particularly after Nathan and of course with what we now know about Anne.

The thought crossed my mind xoxolaurenashley, but I guess since she has been missing him so much..,and perhaps some other desires is overshadowing the anger!

She's also more or less over Brett (I think finally over him occurs when she hears Gideon sing during the karaoke session and learns that Brett's singing voice had been a major turn on for her but now she knows Gideon can sing in a voice that turns her on, plus the man himself is her greatest turn on Brett is not as much of interest - then the final scene with him where she learns he has allowed others to see the sex tape). So I suspect that makes her less annoyed at Gideon following her - and of course Arash confirms that they had genuine business being where they are.

Copying my last comment from the old spoilers thread into here:

quoting from Lighthouse post, on 06 Dec 2014 - 1:51 PM, said:

Disliked Gideon throwing Corrine in Eva's face. Even though I understand what triggered it, his insecurity about Brett. What he did is in the same category as how he punished Eva in the limo after catching her kissing Brett. Still, it ###### me off, because I hate Corrine like Eva does.

My response

At first I was on Gideon's side as her telling him about Brett was hurtful so he hit back. However there is a difference in that although neither of them wish to be involved with the other party, Eva is admitting that she still has a feeling of like for Brett, whereas Gideon no longer has that with Corrine.

However, later in the book when the karaoke evening occurs, I kind of interpreted Eva's reaction to hearing Gideon sing was that part of the attraction to Brett had been the voice and now she heard Gideon could sing his voice was replacing Brett's.

There can be an attraction to certain voices, the singer Mark Lanegan has a very deep baritone voice which I find quite sexy, there's a feeling in the pit of my stomach when he sings some songs, the man himself does not attract me at all but the voice itself can stir the emotions.

Disliked Gideon throwing Corrine in Eva's face. Even though I understand what triggered it, his insecurity about Brett. What he did is in the same category as how he punished Eva in the limo after catching her kissing Brett. Still, it ###### me off, because I hate Corrine like Eva does.

At first I was on Gideon's side as her telling him about Brett was hurtful so he hit back. However there is a difference in that although neither of them wish to be involved with the other party, Eva is admitting that she still has a feeling of like for Brett, whereas Gideon no longer has that with Corrine.

However, later in the book when the karaoke evening occurs, I kind of interpreted Eva's reaction to hearing Gideon sing was that part of the attraction to Brett had been the voice and now she heard Gideon could sing his voice was replacing Brett's.

There can be an attraction to certain voices, the singer Mark Lanegan has a very deep baritone voice which I find quite sexy, there's a feeling in the pit of my stomach when he sings some songs, the man himself does not attract me at all but the voice itself can stir the emotions.

If he did use one it would have been at the hotel because before Eva that is the only place he had sex with women. Maybe he had a separate room for it? Had it built years ago when he sank tons of money into refurbishing the property. Arash complained about the fact he was just breaking even after all that investment when he decided to sell the property. He didn't use one with Deanna. In Ch. 7 of ETW Deanna complained to Eva about how he treated her during their one-night-stand. About how he took a phone call before he was done, looked at her just laying there waiting for him, and told her she could leave. I can't see him using it with Anne because with her he was depraved and for him the swing was a positive fantasy not darkness. I think Corrine is out too. He didn't own the hotel way back then.

Maybe it was always just a long term fantasy, but one he had researched ready for when the right time came?

Quote Gigi It may be a stretch but I have to wonder whether on some subconscious level, Elizabeth Vidal was punishing Gideon because he resembled/in some way represented a part of the husband who hurt so many people and destroyed her family and life. I also have to wonder whether she may have been a little resentful of having to cart around a child from a previous marriage when she was trying to build "a new ideal life and family"?

I had wondered about Gideon resembling his father - we know he looks like his mother facially but was his father similar? Eva's comments on the photo of father and son were just that he had movie star looks and his body was how Gideon's is now.

I also wondered about the actual circumstances of Geoffrey's death - was the deed done at home and who discovered him, Elizabeth or Gideon?

If we don't get all our answers in OWY Sylvia is going to have to give us those via Facebook or Twitter!

Hi Sscrph,

I read your comments and you raise a very proactive question.  What I find really interesting is that every time Gideon is confronted with a nightmare or a face to face discussion about his past abuse, he has a driving need to have very aggressive s*x.  I find it difficult to understand why he feels the need to have very rough, aggressive and nearly violent s*x?  Does anyone have any theories.

 

I understand his need to have control because of past abuse issues but I have difficulty in comprehending the magnitude of his aggression when having s*x.  How can this be related to past abuse issues?  When confronting past memories of abuse, their first instinct isn't to engage in very aggressive s*x.  Many individuals become very emotional and cannot perform s*xually, yet Gideon seems to be the complete antithesis.   

 

Does anyone have any insight or theories?  Off all of the plot twists in the story, this seems like the most difficult to comprehend for me.  What does everyone think?

My own suspicion over the anger is in a post I made a few days ago, along the lines of it could be learned behaviour. Hugh taught Gideon to control his anger via mas*****tion and Hugh then went on to penetrate Gideon, possibly violently (in his nightmares he is writhing in agony. I guess he now relates very rough s*s to his anger and uses that to dissipate the anger. In the elevator scene he knows he should stay away from Eva but she taunts him with the red teddy. I took his actions then to be tying her up to stop her from taunting him further, then going off to shower and drink lots of water to cool down some of the raging 'ardour' he was now feeling and the water would possibly be to try and dilute the alcohol already in his blood stream. He also needed Eva to be more relaxed hence giving her a small glass of spirits.

It was doubtless this anger that rose in him when he was with Anne due to her likeness to Hugh, which led him to be 'particularly depraved' with her and from the fact she came back for more and he allowed her to (because he felt he was punishing Hugh as well as Terence Lucas) she must have thoroughly enjoyed the experience. And I bet she hasn't found anyone quite as good at what he did to her to take his place which could be one of the reasons she is after him.

Noting he was 'particularly depraved' with Anne could mean there was some depravity with others, after all his early s*xual encounters were all forced on him, possibly the vanilla s*x we assume he had with Corrine was not enough for him, whereas with Eva he realised that it was and although he would like to have a little of the kink, he's actually quite happy with vanilla.

Things about Deanna in Aftershock - Nico states to Gia "Vincent never liked her much either. He just put up with her because she was crazy in bed. Liked some kink and bondage."

Then goes on to say "She'd told him once that she started her career by sleeping with prominent married (that word in italics but I can't do that here) men, and then using pillow talk and extortion, if necessary, to get leads out of them."

The outcome of Gia's actions meant Deanna was fired so presumably this happens in a time after Gid/Eva?

All we know happened with Gideon was that he came on to Deanna to evade being stuck with Anne Lucas, Deanna had heard he had a dark reputation so was willing to hook up. He took Deanna to the hotel, proceeded to do something unspecified with her but probably not the s*x*al act itself and probably no bondage or kink included, took a phone call and told her she could go as whatever the call was about was more important than her (and in Gideon's mind some business would be more important than a quick shag with a woman he did not expect to see again in that way). So yes it is not nice to get down to the s*x act and end up unfulfilled and told to go, and presuming she knew his one night stand history to realise there would be no repeat - but is that really enough to cause someone to continue to hold a grudge?

Knowing we only have one book to go and lots of things to finalise, maybe we're on the wrong track with Deanna, thinking she may be dangerous still when in fact Gideon's apology could have calmed her down? So far as the women are concerned he's enough on his hands with Anne who is definitely dangerous, getting Corrine to realise publishing a book is not a great idea at all and is not going to solve anything, and then his mother - is he going to reconcile with her once she realises she was totally in the wrong, or will there remain some form of distance between them? The mystery of the other person who checked Gideon and said he had not been abused is still there plus I can't forget the comment Gideon made re Cary at the garden party "Just remember that he's Eva's friend, Mother. That makes him min as well."

In finding that last sentence I passed through the scene in the library - after Magdalene had seen Gideon and Eva we know she told Christopher that she saw Gideon eating Eva, did she rush straight to tell him, was that why Christopher appeared shortly after while they were f**king? Was he attempting to act as a voyeur, and had he done so in the past when Hugh was with Gideon?

Chris jr gets a bit of bad press but justifiably so. We saw what he did to maggie at the garden party. He wants to promote six ninths at the expense of Eva. A pattern seems to develop he doesn't was to see Gideon happy is that guilt for not speaking up when Hugh was abusing Gideon . Had Hugh tried with him and then went to Gideon .?

Elizabeth Vidal her son tells her the terrible things Hugh did but yet she didn't believe him. But I'm thinking out of the box could it be that Hugh or Dr Lucas have info on Elizabeth that connected her to the financial fraud along with her husband. So they therefore blackmailed her to keep quiet or they'd expose her . Elizabeth unable to take her own life like Her husband had and unable to face the prospect of court cases her reputation splashed across the newspapers and media took the option of not believing her son in the hope that he would just forget it and move on with his life .

Just putting it out there !

I suspect Gideon was the more obvious candidate for abuse, after 5 years of parental happiness his dad is gone from his life after a period of parental unhappiness which they obviously did not hide from him. His mother then re-marries pretty quickly and starts her own life over again (re-booted) whereas Gideon is still the same child abandoned by his dad and seeing his mum changing. Then along comes Christopher fairly early in the new marriage and undoubtedly Elizabeth and Chris snr will have been 'all over' the new baby, they may not have purposely left Gideon out but suddenly he is not the only one. By the time Chris is 5 (I think) Gideon is an angry child and we don't know how that manifested, but Chris jnr is copying him and therapy is sought. Hugh will fairly quickly have sussed out which is the more vulnerable child and an easier prey. But something has triggered off jealousy in Chris jnr, he states in CBY that Gideon would have liked to see him dead - hope we get an explanation of that early in the book. Has Gideon shut out some of his memories of the past so completely and Dr Peterson will draw them out.

The way Chris jnr wants to take everything from Gideon could indicate at some point Gideon took something from Chris jnr that he will not forgive. I sincerely hope it is not Hugh pushing Gideon to do something to Chris during the so called therapy.

Up to a couple of days ago I'd not listened to anything from the audio books but after some comments in the spoilers thread I downloaded CBY and searched for the scene mentioned to hear how it sounded, listened to a chapter of the ale voice and one of the female. I preferred the male voice doing Gideon but not Eva , found it odd hearing the female doing Gideon (probably because I'd already heard the male version), and agree, hearing Angus scots accent was funny.

But it was good to hear how the words the characters say (rather than the scene setting) was put over as, although we can hear a voice in our heads saying the words, we can hear them internally in a way that does not always convey what the author intended - the tone of voice and the stress put on some words can change the meaning. Once time permits I will start with BTY and give the entire audio series a go.

There are often exceptions to those rules though - my sister's ex is black, my sister is white - pale skinned with light brown hair with reddish tinge (mum has very dark brown hair and dad is a redhead), the twins were born white and after a few months their skin changed to an olive hue. My friend has a similar situation but her twins are as dark as their father. Another friend is Mauritian and her husband white, their daughters are both white skinned.

An observation on Gideon's anger issues

He was already an angry child after his father's suicide. During the course of his therapy Hugh taught him that m****bation would ease that, including looking at pictures of women who looked something like his mother, and moving on to include penetration. Angus somehow takes over the anger issues and Gideon takes up MMA finding physical exertion also controls his anger. He meets Corrine who looks physically like his mother and starts a relationship - probably not a good idea as he must already dislike his mother due to her not believing him. So is it possible there were some anger issues during that relationship but Corinne's voice soothed him with it's soft lilt. She wouldn't be aware of the abuse so I did wonder what it was she soothed him for?

Is it also possible that, prior to the therapy while he was the angry child feeling spurned by his father but still happy with his mother, when Christopher came along and undoubtedly Elizabeth and Christopher showed some preference for their child, Gideon did something that could have harmed the baby, which someone later told Christopher about? If so could his mother have been angry with him which would be the start of their poor relationship?

Gideon then starts his series of one night stands in the f*** pad, makes enquiries to find out Hugh was his abuser and although Terry Lucas denied anything to do with Gideon when he spoke to Eva, it does look like Terry was the one consulted re Gideon's abuse (can't remember if that is said anywhere), and so far we are led to believe he covered up because Hugh was Anne's brother. But is that sufficient reason for him to have lied or is there more to that subject? Gideon confronts Hugh, who goes on to commit suicide. Presumably after that happened Gideon becomes aware of Anne Lucas, now could that be because he picked her up at one of the functions to be a one night stand (bearing in mind she's not his usual type, discovered who she was and decide to mess with her, or did he deliberately set out to have a relationship with her to take revenge on her husband? Did Anne instigate the kinky stuff or was it a direct result of Gideon's anger? It seems that with her, although he had difficulty getting it up, once it was up he could be at it for ages, spurred by his anger feelings.

The only other woman we know for definite he was involved with is Deanna, a one night stand who he didn't seemingly actually have s*x with but who was aware he had a dark side - how did she become aware of that? Had the dark side come out with any of the other women or was it just Anne (we know he said he was more depraved with Anne and that did not sit well with him and I suspect the flogging etc. mention was only with her and not the others where he probably used the toys in the conventional way). Was Deanna more annoyed because he did not come up to scratch via his dark side?

He had said that when Eva was 'fighting his cause' he was hard and lusted after her, and in CBY when she tells Chris Snr about the abuse he is angry and very turned on. Not sure if his anger is because she told Chris - bearing in mind Gideon thought Chris already knew so the surprise here was that Chris did not know - but not sure if Gideon's violent reaction was to discovering Chris did not know or just the fact that Eva was fighting his cause again.

Gideon spends very little time sleeping, when he is with Eva they are at it like rabbits for a lot of the night time, he's probably functioned on very little sleep for most of his life, angry thoughts mulling over in his mind, big business deals etc. My thoughts are leading to something I can't really conclude, he's a powerhouse when it comes to the length of time he is able to have s*x and doesn't seem at all exhausted at the end of it, whereas Eva, who is putting less physically into s*x, is wiped out. He's said he gets as much pleasure from getting her off multiple times than just getting himself off the once, but is part of the durability he shows coming from anger management due to the lack of control he feels when with Eva?

I'm probably barking up the wrong tree with a lot of that and happy for any comments/corrections.

I cannot believe how clever a writer Sylvia is, so much to read into what is going on in these books, I really cannot understand those negative reviews.

Iwasinger "Christopher Vidal – He is just so full of hate and jealousy towards Gideon. Not sure it is anymore than that. I am not convinced that he was molested. His behavior points more towards bitterness than damage. Just my opinion."

Christopher has some idea Gideon wanted him dead since the day he was born - wonder what happened early on that either Gideon has forgotten about, or Christopher has misunderstood, yet neither of them has sat down and discussed it?

I have seen two reviews of CBY (one on Good Reads, one on Amazon so could be the same person) where there is criticism of grammar and typographical errors in the book.

I used to proof read/amend documents as part of my job and I cannot say I spotted even one typo, and the grammar read ok to me - did anyone spot anything that I may have missed?

On Good Reads some of the reviewers who are of the 'it's a filler/rushed/nothing happening and too much sex' point of view think those who give 5 stars and think the book did have plenty happening are lieing. I for one would be telling the truth if I said I found CBY to be a good book and that there was plenty happening - Gideon's POV letting us see more of his character, the scenes where they do actually gel as a couple (which make it more unbelievable when Eva does run), their inter-action with Eva's dad, Cary, Ireland. The glimpses of Gideon's relationships (Corrine, Anne, his mother), the scenes with Chris Vidal Snr and the short one with Vidal jnr, there is sex in the book - there would have to be as this couple's main relationship is through sex - but I did not think the sex dominated the story, and some of it was necessary to see how Gideon was gaining Eva's trust in those matters (and sadly then losing it over not consulting her).