BOOK IV - Chapter VI - Christian and Anastasia Fan Fiction

CHAPTER VI

Bedtime Story

Anastasia’s lips part as if her deep inhalation can’t get enough air into her lungs. She’s curious, but also at the precipice of a decision. Is she ready for this? I close my eyes, and swallow hard trying to decide if I want to tell her everything. After what we lived through this week, our lives changed irrevocably, and I want nothing standing between us. Not even the whisper or a ghost of my fucked up past. When I open my eyes back up, Anastasia’s gaze is fixed on me with all its intensity. Memories of that fateful summer come flooding. I take a deep breath and the floodgates open.

Bryan Adams - Please Forgive Me

“It was a hot summer day. I was working hard,” I snort remembering. I haven’t done such backbreaking work in such a long time. I shake my head, amused with the thought how hard I worked for that small amount of money. “The work was backbreaking, shifting all that rubble. I was working on my own, and Ele-“ I say remembering. It was Mrs. Lincoln then. “Mrs. Lincoln appeared out of nowhere and brought me some lemonade. We exchanged small talk, and I made some smart-ass remark… and she slapped me. She slapped me so hard,” I say with the ghost of the pain, my hand reaching up to my cheek again, caressing.

After slapping me so fucking hard, burning my cheek, she grabbed my face with her hands, but didn’t touch me anywhere else, kissed me ferociously with dominating, intense stroking of her lips. Elena’s kiss was possessing, all-consuming as if she lit me on fire and let me burn up from within with a fire that was never going to go out. It was a feeling I had never experienced; I never thought I could experience it. She awakened the beast in me. I continue talking about my first experience with Elena.

“But then she kissed me. And when she finished, she slapped me again,” I murmur, blinking. To this day, I’m still perplexed about it. I was a troublemaker, unworthy of love, or care. Because I was and still am a beast inside. You see, the single day out of the year I felt comfortable was Halloween. Because that was the only day the ghouls and the monsters in me matched the scenery outside, an ironic day that made me among the norm. Elena’s kiss awakened the hungry monster in me then; a sexually starved beast I never knew existed inside me came to force with full power. And the pain, pain that came along with dark, the ghoulish, scary side in me… pain was familiar, welcome even.

“I’d never been kissed before or hit like that,” I confess.

I look down to Anastasia. Elena is her hard limit. I don’t know if I should tell her about this, but I want to. I want no barriers between us. No dark spots left hidden.

“Do you want to hear this?” I ask.

Indecision crosses her face. “Only if you want to tell me,” she says in a small voice, facing me.

“I’m trying to give you some context.”

She nods, encouraging me to continue then. But Anastasia looks shocked, her eyes are wide, and she’s speechless. I search her face for a trace of disinterest, fear, or any indication that she doesn’t want to hear this. I finally see the encouragement I'm seeking in her face, and roll onto my back staring up at the ceiling.

“Well, naturally, I was confused and angry and horny as hell. I mean, a hot older woman comes onto you like that-“ I say shaking my head. Fifteen year old boys, no matter how much the fifteen year old girls think of them being hot and irresistible, aren’t exactly the material older women are looking for. But, I now recognize Elena's initial dominating presence. She wanted someone she could train and completely dominate. I never had a chance of escaping it. Elena first had a sharp intake after my dumb-ass remark, and her stance immediately changed to a dominant one. She pushed her shoulders back, squaring them, her head slightly came forward like an eagle ready to capture a prey. I was unable but to respond to her stance automatically, because I’ve never seen anything like it before. In fact, I don’t ever remember seeing Elena with that dominating stance in all family gatherings.

I hear a controlled intake of breath from Anastasia at my comment on Elena being hot. My observation was retrospect of how I felt about myself, and how insignificant and worthless I thought of myself to be. An intake-charity case; a damaged fatherless shitless kid born from a whore who was on drugs. Beaten by her pimp, starved to the point where I wouldn’t mind eating yard trimmings had I have the opportunity, or a chance to go outside as that insignificant four year old I once was. So, Elena kissing me, this worthless man-child and slapping me to straighten my foulmouthed behavior immediately zeroed in all my interest in her. All of a sudden I was the focus of this hot woman. 

Confused, interested, horny and for a change, I wanted this experience to continue. I was introduced to a sensation; triggered by Elena's lips on mine, and her forceful slap to jolted me in and out of my body, disciplining me. I craved all of it with such intensity as if all the fifteen year hunger I’ve had for physical touch was about to be sated in the form of a promised feast of sensations with her. Elena's behavior said that she wanted me and her kiss made me want to experience that again and again.  

Feeling Anastasia’s gaze on me, I continue my story.

“She went back into the house, leaving me in the backyard. She acted as if nothing had happened. I was at a total loss. So I went back to work, loading the rubble into the dumpster. When I left that evening, she asked me to come back the next day. She didn’t mention what had happened. So the next day I went back. I couldn’t wait to see her again,” I whisper, finally letting Anastasia into my dark past; feeling like I’m in a confessional, pouring out all my sins to one person who has the power to forgive, and clear the slate for me.

I don’t know what Anastasia is thinking, but I can feel the judgment that is passing through her head, towards me but mostly for Elena.

“She didn’t touch me when she kissed me,” I murmur and turn to my wife gazing at her, trying to see what she’s thinking. I see her quizzical face directed at me. “You have to understand…my life was hell on earth. I was a walking hard-on, fifteen years old, tall for my age, hormones raging. The girls at school—“ I stop there. Girls thought I was a handsome guy, but I couldn’t let them get near me without freaking out. I was a fucking freak! I couldn’t let the girls or anyone for that matter to touch me. Such a simple, non-thought requiring gesture for many was a trigger for me to go berserk. It’s not because I wasn’t turned on, or that my hormones weren’t wreaking havoc on my body when it came to the opposite sex. My fear of touch overtook my life, and there was no way of getting rid of it. Anastasia’s face softens with understanding.

“I was angry, so fucking angry at everyone, at myself, my folks. I had no friends. My therapist at the time was a total asshole. My folks, they kept me on a tight leash; they didn’t understand,” I utter in one long breath. My gaze flow to the ceiling again, looking but no seeing. My hand runs through my hair in exasperation as if this happened yesterday. Nothing soothed my soul, nothing sated the anger I had in me; not the brawls, not the therapy, not the advice from my parents, or their worries, not restrictions, or limits, and I was one fucking tight ball of negative energy ready to burst anytime. There was nothing that could contain me and not be damaged by me. I was damaged goods! Even breathing took an effort. Everything angered me; I was mad at the universe for having me exist, and be like this. My world was chaotic, bolts of energy charging out of me, uncontrolled, untamed, volatile and violent directing everywhere and everyone. Then Elena came, containing it for me. I realize that Anastasia is unusually still beside me.

“I just couldn’t bear anyone to touch me. I couldn’t! Couldn’t bear anyone near me. I used to fight…fuck, did I fight. I got into some god-awful brawls. I was expelled from a couple of schools. But it was a way to let off steam. To tolerate some kind of physical contact,” I say stopping.

Fighting served a couple of purposes. It gave me pain when I got hit, and that allowed me to feel… something, anything. And however little or however negative it was, that was means for me to touch without intending, or focusing on the act of touching and be touched even if it was violent. All the stress made me ready to burst at any moment.

I search Anastasia’s face. She’s silent, frozen like a statue; her eyes are wide in utter shock. I frown. Am I scaring her? There’s no indication of that. I think she wants me to go on. I turn my back and continue to stare up at the ceiling again.

“Well, you get the idea. And when she kissed me, she only grabbed my face. She didn’t touch me,” I say in a barely audible voice. I’m not expecting Anastasia to understand that. Imagine someone giving you food and water after you were starved for fifteen years if it was possible to survive such an ordeal. That was my feeling, and of course being fifteen years old, I took whatever she was willing to give me, do to me or for me, and held onto it like a life raft. I was finally breathing.

Elena was my mother’s friend and she frequented our house often. I had not paid attention to her before although anyone could see that she was a hot attractive woman. I had once caught my mother asking when she was going to have children. Elena said that preferred my mother’s children as opposed to having children of her own. And the irony isn’t lost on me, now.

Anastasia folds her hand beneath her pillow and rest her head on the pillow in a way to restrain herself. Why?

“Well, the next day I went back to the house, not knowing what to expect. And I’ll spare you the gory details, but there was more of the same. And that’s how our relationship started,” I summarize. But the memory of the second day rushes in unbidden.

When I reached the Lincoln house that day, Elena opened the door, wordlessly let me in, waved away my mother with a delightful smile. Once my mother drove away, she closed the door, looked at her watch, “you’re twelve minutes late,” she said with her gaze icy, chilling me to my core and furious at the same time making her hot like a volcano. I was quite surprised at the contradicting look.

“Elena, my mom had…” I said trying to tell her that my mother had me take out the trash and quickly do a couple of chores before I left, but she didn’t let me finish my words, slapping me hard across my cheek and then backhanding me. I can still feel the ringing in my ears with remembrance.

“Mrs. Lincoln!” she corrected me firmly and decidedly, then grabbing hold of my head, slightly pulling me down because I was still taller than her. She kissed me savagely, punishingly, brutally in fact, biting the inside of my lower lip, drawing blood. The coppery taste in my mouth was welcome despite the savagery of her act. I was hooked.

“I don’t do late! If I asked you to be here at 9:00 a.m. I did NOT imply it to be 9:01, or 8:59 a.m. I meant precisely at 9:00 a.m. You are to be punctual. And you are to do as you are asked. Do you understand me, Christian?”

“Ah, yeah,” I remember muttering, confused.

“What?” she asked slapping me across my face again.

“Y..Y...yes,” I squeaked then. She backhanded me after my slurred speech.

“’Yes, ma’am,’ is the correct answer,” she hissed, her gaze fixed on me.

“Yes, ma’am,” I responded looking at her devotedly, Then she pulled my face in and kissed me brutally once again. Once she let go of my swollen lips she rewarded me with a pleased, predatory smile, a smile I tried to earn from thereon.

“I need you to come every day this week at the exact time I tell you to come, and you will perform what I ask you to perform,” she said with dual meaning even I, a horny teenager couldn’t miss.

“On Wednesday, I have…” I said and she gave me a pointed look, and then slapped me again, making me blink.

“Wrong answer. I do not tolerate disobedience.”

“Yes, ma’am, I’ll be here,” I managed to respond.

“Good. Now, your work is waiting in the backyard,” she said to my confused face, completely impassively. That’s how it all started. Within that week Elena had me quit drinking, cutting class, fighting and gave me the first taste of cane, and my first sexual experience. She made all the decisions for me, and I was only to obey. For the first time in my life, I didn’t have to think how to handle something, someone or a problem. It was already decided for me. All Elena had to tell me was to jump. And if I had her permission to speak, I didn’t even have to ask how high, because Elena would have already specified the height, length, and the duration of that jump already. My chaotic world focused because the chaos was eliminated by her taking full and absolute control over me.

Afrojack - Take Over Control

I shift in my place, turning on my side, I look at Anastasia.

“And you know something, Ana? My world came into focus. Sharp and clear. Everything. It was exactly what I needed. She was a breath of fresh air. Making the decisions, taking all that shit away from me, letting me breathe.”

I can see that it’s painful for Anastasia to hear this; but this is my life, uncensored. This was the person, the man-child I once was; out of control, undisciplined, chaotic, argumentative, disobedient, and detrimental to my own well-being and future. Had my life not found the focus it needed, I don’t know where I would have been without the correct and right interference for the person I was. It is entirely possible that I may have found that, but maybe along the way I would have caused other damages to myself, and inadvertently to my family until that focus came into my life. There is a time and a place for certain experiences in life… Like the fucking cliché says ‘everything happens for a reason’, and perhaps it was necessary for me to live that at the time however wrong it was. Because I wasn’t getting the right help anywhere else. Nothing was working. I do understand now that Elena had used me for a pupil; sex-slave in training, a boy-toy of a bored trophy wife. She could have still helped me without abusing me. But Elena had her way, and I could never argue with it. Could she have waited until I was old enough to give consent? She could have, but Elena never had qualms about my age. She possessed me, and enjoyed the experience.

My last declaration causes a flitter of pain go through Anastasia’s face, but she doesn’t stop me, or argue with me, or tell me she’s disgusted by me.

“And even when it was over, my world stayed in focus because of her. And it stayed that way until I met you,” I say, and the shock in Ana’s face is evident as the light of day. I smooth a stray lock of hair behind her ear. I know what she thinking, but her brand of chaos is exactly what I needed after having learned to control, and focus. Because this is in my nature. I want control; I need control like the air I breathe. But I already learned to exercise that. True to my nature, I also need the excitement, the chaos, the challenge Anastasia brings into my life. I didn’t know this was a need until she stumbled through my door.

“You turned my world on its head,” I say closing my eyes, remembering the first feeling of challenge she gave me, drunk dialing. The first night, Ana sleeping in my bed... I couldn’t close my eyes to sleep a wink, because all I wanted to do was to watch her. I immediately felt that this was the woman I needed in my life. It was beyond wanting her. It was raw, primal, irrevocable need. My life found its purpose when I found Anastasia. I look at my wife; she’s pure attention.

“My world was ordered, calm and controlled, then you came into my life with your smart mouth, your innocence, your beauty, and your quiet temerity…and everything before you was just dull, empty, mediocre…it was nothing.”

Her face softens; her breathing shallow and her eyes wide as she listens.

“I fell in love,” I whisper. I hear her breath hitch, and she stops breathing for a while. I caress her cheek.

“So did I,” she murmurs. Her response fills my eyes with love for her brightly.

“I know,” I mouth. She takes a deep breath.

“You do?” she asks.

“Yes,” I confirm. Of course I do. The knowledge of her love is the most welcome and most valuable possession I have in my heart; it means I have my wife’s heart and soul.

“Finally,” she whispers as she shyly smiles at me. I nod.

“And it’s put everything into perspective for me. When I was younger, Elena was the center of my world. There was nothing I wouldn’t do for her. And she did a lot for me. She stopped my drinking. Made me work hard at school… You know, she gave me a coping mechanism I hadn’t had before, allowed me to experience thing that I never thought I could.”

“Touch,” she whispers, still pained.

I know this is hard for her to hear. But without Elena’s help, I don’t know where I would be at that time of my life. Because, for the first time in my life, my problems weren’t drowning me and it wasn’t a constant fight to stay afloat to breathe. It was not hard to obey her, because she too was flawed like me and so unlike my perfect family. I was well aware of her dark side starting with the first slap on my face; but in that dark, her commanding voice was the only sound I heard and it guided me, darkening everything else that gave me fear, pulling them into the shades, not erasing or disappearing them but blending them into the darkness so I no longer saw them, and let them affect me until I was able to build layers of protection to shield myself on my own. Elena taught me to conceal and mask all my fears, keeping them at bay and shed my inhibitions, introduced me into a lifestyle that has become my coping mechanism.

I had not thought about or even considered of the wrongs of that relationship until recently. I remember a school break and coming home from Harvard. My mom gathered all family and ‘friends’ to celebrate my homecoming. My brother Elliot thought he was doing me a favor and brought his then girlfriend and her roommate for a possible match for me. The girl was like white over rice on me, trying to get to my good side, and she was cute, I’ll give her that, but I wasn’t in the market for someone. I had Elena; she was all I wanted or needed. And Elena had me, by the balls, literally. She glanced at me coolly during my mother’s dinner. Getting in my arm later, she said, “Christian, dear, I have to hear all about your school,” and walked me by the dock. My parents thought of her an aunt to their children. When we reached to the relative darkness of the dock, she dropped the whole charade and turned around and slapped me so hard.

“You have crossed the line by tolerating that bitch. I do not share, Christian. This was intolerable, and you have misbehaved, and deviated from what I expect of you when you were away. I am going to do something about that. When I leave in the next 10 minutes, I want you to get in any car you can, and get to my house precisely fifteen minutes after I'm gone. Mr. Lincoln is away on a business trip,” she said, and in the glimmer of the moonlight, I could see her angry, cold blue eyes, baleful, and full of fury.

“When you get there,” she said her hand grasping my cock, and balls squeezing tight until my eyes rolled into the back of my head, and “I want nothing on you, except a cock cage,” she enunciates without elaborating. Elena could come up with the most cruel or unusual punishments. I didn’t know what I was to expect. I don’t even know what excuse I gave my family and left fifteen minutes after she did to make it to her house on time.

The door to her house was open and she was in her all leather domme outfit. I silently went to her dungeon, and stripped my clothes off. Placed my cock into the cock cage which was no easy and neither was it pain free feat considering I had a massive erection with expectation. I had to go through all the microeconomics formulas and equations to divert my attention from my arousal to contain my cock within the minimal confinement of the cock cage.  

Elena walked after me, ordering me to go and stand by the wall decorated with shackles and metal handcuffs. Neither the cuffs nor the shackles were attached to the wall; rather to a free unit which you could turn the sub around and apply punishment both in the front or the back. She was going to beat the shit out of me, knowing she meant to leave her mark all over my body from my wrist, to my cock to my toes. No shorts or t-shirt for me for the next two weeks.  She cuffed my ankles first and then the wrists making sure they were extra tight, then pulled the chains to make me spread eagle against the cold stone wall. Despite the punishment I was going to receive, my cock tried to grow. Microeconomics formulas were child’s play for me; I could count them in my sleep. I had to think of something harder. I started reciting the Periodic Table in French in my head.

“Tableau Pérodique des éléments,” I started in my head. “Hydrogène, Hélium, Lithium, Béryllium, Bore, Carbone, Azote, Oxygène, Flour, Néon, Magnésium, Aluminium, Silicium, Phosphore, Soufre,  Chlore, Argon, Calcium, Scandium, Titane, Vanadium, Chrome….”

I could hear Elena choosing an item off the wall for my punishment. I placed my face on the cold stone, and the metal confinement holding my cock, and squeezing my balls were also transferring cold from the stone wall. My mind was briefly occupied thinking what she was going to hit me with. I tried to entertain the idea that was something easy like a paddle or a riding crop, but Elena was brutal with her punishments. I knew she would choose something like a whip, flogger, wet leather belt, or a cane… She tested the air behind me and I heard the multiple strands flying behind me, thinking, “fuck! It’s the cat of nine tails!” and they hurt like hell, even digging into the skin, removing it, leaving multiple welted marks all at the same time. Even the French periodic table isn’t enough to get my mind distanced from the punishment, though I could normally handle a shit load of beating. But this time she wasn’t holding anything back. 

In order to cope with the pain, I started counting the periodic table with atomic weights and numbers, all in French. “Hydrogène…” breathe deep, and hold, “nombre atomique: un. Groupe: un. Période: un. Configuration électronique: 1s¹. Nombre d’oxydation: -1 + 1. Électronégativité: 2.2… “ 

Then I felt the tendrils of the cat land across my back my arms, and my buttocks and I even felt the warm oozing of blood on my mid back. One of the tendrils reached my caged cock as her blows started raining strategically. My balls must be purple by then, but I just wanted to get through the fucking punishment! I didn’t know how many of them I received raining down on me systematically starting with my back and arms, then going down to my buttocks and legs after cross welting my back over my shoulders and back again until I reached to a point where I wanted to safe-word her, but fearing of disappointing her, I didn’t. I wanted to float out of my body, go to a pain free place where my legs didn’t tremble, my arms didn’t shake, my face wasn’t screwed shut tight in pain and where I didn’t have to recite the fucking periodic table in French! But no such luck was possible because in order to cope with pain, I squeezed my hands – the only part of my body I could move - so tightly that my nails were digging into my palms and drawing blood all unconsciously!

That wasn’t the first time Elena exerted her dominance over me spectacularly, forcefully and undoubtedly, and neither was it the last time, but that was the first time she brought me only a hair away from my breaking point, and yet I still couldn’t say no, stop, or ‘red’ to her. I wanted her to punish me for existing. Not for a dumb girl who showed interest in me in Elena’s presence. But, for being here, on earth. Punish the unworthy, unlovable, unimportant; fill the void in me with so much pain that I didn’t have to think that fucking desperate hole in my soul that was sucking the life out of me. But it was also my turning point in realizing that what I got from Elena was a way to cope with this hole, the feeling of worthlessness, and not love. Because she allowed me to experience human touch; a woman's touch with intense pleasure and morbid pain. 

But, more than that, on that day, she turned me around still shackled, cuffed and stretched out, put my punished back to the wall, making the warm blood dry against the cold stone, and used a cane to welt and excite me by whipping my front side. Despite the pain, my body responded, and my cock turned blue and purple trying hard for an erection, not fitting into the confinement. After having been satisfied with the beating she delivered, Elena unlocked the cock cage, and proceeded to suck me. 

"You are not allowed to come! You must hold it in; if you can't, I will make sure that your punishment will keep your off your tight ass for an entire month!" she said with her predatory smile. Once she was done sucking me, making my cock throb for a release, she let go of me. She unlocked my shackles and cuffs and I nearly sagged to the wall behind me, but I didn't give her the satisfaction of seeing me nearly break down. 

“Now, fuck me for my pleasure only!” she ordered leaning back onto the punishment bench, and I thrusted hard into her, reciting the Tableau Pérodique des éléments backwards until she screamed her release, leaving my cock bruised, and dangerously desperate for release. But the pain of unreleased load inside me hurt me like hell all the way to my toes, yet somehow something cleared in my head. I could control me. I could control pain, I could take a very hard punishment fuck, and still come out okay. I knew then I was finally in control of my life, of my world, and everything in it. I could be a dominant. I could be okay. I finally broke the wall of fear. I had none. That is not until Anastasia got into my life.

I look at my wife’s face. “Touch,” she said. Yes, I had learned to experience touch with Elena, but I learned to live my life with Anastasia. I nod at her.

“After a fashion,” I say without elaborating, I frown, trying to chase away the memory. I look at my wife with fear. There is dark in my past. Dark I had to learn to deal with, dark I had to walk through to get to the light. Darkness that consumed me, consumed my life, and everything I did, then my sun rose, and chased away the shadows. And my sun is currently looking at me pleading for more.

“If you grow up with a wholly negative self-image, thinking you’re some kind of reject, an unlovable savage, you think you deserve to be beaten.”

I know it well; and I’ve taken a lot of punishment, beating, and I welcomed the feeling. Welcomed it! Desired it, wanted it! Because that was my norm. That’s all I knew. I pause and run a hand through my hair. “Ana, it’s much easier to wear your pain on the outside...” I say, confessing. By wearing it outside, it matched the torment I was going through inside. It gave me a morbid sense of normalcy. Elena didn’t hold anything back with her punishments and she didn’t take any shit from me. But, her methods of control, however brutal they showed me how to channel my anger at the intensity I was feeling them. Somehow she always knew, and held nothing back in its release and collected her own dues in blood, skin, flesh, blue balls... Nothing was off limits except the no-go zone with hands. The only time she broke that rule, I stopped being her sub. I was strong, controlled, and mastered the art of channeling my demons and storms inside my soul. I was a pupil no longer. 

“She channeled my anger,” I mutter as my mouth thins into a bleak line. “Mostly inward – I realize now. Dr. Flynn’s been on and on about this for some time. I was only recently that I saw our relationship for what it was. You know... on my birthday.”

I had a suspicion that I wasn’t the only sub Elena had. Clearly I was in Harvard and it would take me 3 or 4 weeks to see her between visits, and she had the need to dominate, exert pain, and to fuck – not that she stopped dominating me even if I was across the country. I had suspected that she had other distractions besides me, but I was her favorite boy toy since I was the best, darkest, and most intense. She liked controlling me; breaking into the unbreakable stallion. I think she continually wanted to exert her dominance over me even after the sex between us was over. She managed to top from the bottom, I now realize. That became clear on my birthday when she lost it completely and confronted Anastasia.

Without having any control over her own behavior, in my parents’ home for fuck’s sake, not caring who would hear her, and clearly my mother has heard her, Elena had shown both to me and to Anastasia that she wanted to continue dominating me. When Anastasia and I were engaged, Elena realized that she was going to lose any hope of controlling me knowing that Anastasia hated her with a passion and my girl was someone Elena couldn’t control, and she in return couldn't control me through her. She panicked knowing I was in love with Anastasia and her hopes to get to dominate me once again would be ended, and our horrendous fight ensued. But I didn’t realize this until very recently, until I thought it through. 

I was Elena's longest male relationship. Longer than what she had with her husband, and she got to dominate me for five years of that relationship. She knows that no other woman had done that to me, except her. I am one of the wealthiest, able mind and body, and strongest men on earth. By GQ and People Magazine’s standards apparently I’m one of the sexiest men alive. Clearly, having played a major role in shaping me, Elena doesn’t like to lose me to someone she can’t dominate; someone who will most definitely cut her access to me. In a way, I submit to my wife, voluntarily. That’s got to be killing her. Because Elena is nothing if not competitive, and possessive. But I am a bigger dominant than she is, and I protect what is mine, and those I love fiercely. Elena is a done deal; a phase that needed to happen, but all in the past.

A visible shudder goes through Anastasia’s body, no doubt with the mention of Elena on my birthday, bringing forth the ugly memories into the forefront of her mind. I want all of that erased.

“For her side of our relationship was about sex and control and a lonely woman finding some kind of comfort with her boy toy.”

“But you like control,” she whispers correctly assessing her husband.

“Yes. I do. I always will, Ana. It’s who I am. I surrendered it for a brief while. Let someone make all my decisions for me. I couldn’t do it myself – I wasn’t in a fit state. But through my submission to her, I found myself and found the strength to take charge of my life.. Take control and make my own decisions.”

“Become a Dom?” she asks wondering whether it was my decision.

“Yes.”

“Your decision?”

“Yes.”

“Dropping out of Harvard?”

“My decision, and it was the best decision I ever made. Until I met you,” I say and her face wears an expression of awe.

“Me?” she asks having a hard time believing.

“Yes,” I whisper as my lips quirk up in a smile. “The best decision I ever made was marrying you.”

“Not starting your company?”

I shake my head without breaking my gaze.

“Not learning to fly?”

I shake my head again. “You,” I mouth. Undoubtedly, my best decision. I found half of my heart which was missing all along. A lot of people go through life without finding their other half, and it’s unfortunate because until that happens, they’re aimless not realizing they’re settling for second or third or fifteenth or hundred and fiftieth best. And yet, I found her, and I fell madly  and irrevocably in love with her. Elena knew that before I had a name for my feelings.

“She knew,” I whisper.

Anastasia doesn’t understand. She frowns.

“She knew what?”

“That I was head over heels in love with you. She encouraged me to go down to Georgia to see you, and I’m glad she did. She thought you’d freak out and leave. Which you did.” Elena perhaps thought that once Ana was out of my life, I’d get another sub, and move on until she and I resumed a sexual relationship. Her intent only became evident in her very controlled, very well-rehearsed mind -- which didn’t let any stray thought out -- on my birthday because of her panic in hearing our decision to get married; her thought of losing me to her inferior in Elena's mind. Yet, Anastasia is superior to any other woman I know. And in Ana's absence after she left me, I realized a lot things: I was in love with the love of my life madly, irrevocably, insanely, completely and soul shatteringly. I couldn’t live without her and I would do anything to get her back into my life. Anything it took! I have never, ever felt this way for anyone at all. Not for Elena, not for any sub I fucked, not anyone else I have encountered. Anastasia has become the sole focus of my life; suddenly becoming the most important individual, because on a deeper level, I knew that her soul called out to me.  Having Ana in my life has been essential to my well-being and my sanity. It would kill me if she was with anyone else. And since most my time have been consumed just with thinking about her; she became the sole woman who made me feel safe, centered my universe, making my heart and soul complete, and finally made me normal within Christian Grey standards.  

Anastasia pales; clearly displeased knowing that Elena has had so much interference even though she didn’t let it out and has done it most covertly.

“She thought I needed all the trappings of the lifestyle I enjoyed.”

“The Dom?” Ana whispers.

I nod. “It enabled me to keep everyone at arm’s length, gave me control, and kept me detached, or so I thought. I’m sure you’ve worked out why,” I add softly. 

“Your birth mom?”

“I didn’t want to be hurt again. And then you left me. And I was a mess,” I whisper, my voice barely audible. I wanted to hurt and punish myself when she was gone. I wanted my outside match with the pain and torment I felt inside. I spiraled out of control, because Anastasia took the center of my universe away, and left me aimless, purposeless. My birth mom died on me. Not that she was good mom, but she was a mom. She just checked out of life, took the easy way out instead of facing her problems. And Ana… She left me instead of confronting me. Anastasia leaving me that morning was the third worse incident of my life. The first one was finding her nearly dead, and second was talking to her on the phone at the bank when she told me she was leaving me, after having her as my wife, making me think that she was leaving me, not just by herself but with a part of me in the form of our child.

“I’ve avoided intimacy so long – I don’t know how to do this,” I whisper. I’m going to make spectacular mistakes. I don’t want her to run away from me every time I screw up. And part of the reason I didn’t tell her everything about me was because of this fear… that she would leave me. Leaving me is the logical thing to do. I’m bad, worthless, rotten to the core, and she’s good. It’s doesn’t add up.  Elena was different, because I didn’t have to worry about losing her. She was dark, and bad like me. I could understand that. What I had difficulty of understanding was that all these good people loved me and I tried to keep them at arm’s length, because deep down I knew I was unworthy of them. Yet their love was given to me freely, a gift. I didn’t understand that until I nearly lost my wife.

“You’re doing fine,” Anastasia murmurs, encouraging me. She traces my lips with her index finger, and I pucker my lips to kiss it.

“Do you miss it?” she whispers hesitantly.

“Miss it?”

“That lifestyle.”

“Yes, I do,” I reply with another confession. Her face falls. I don’t want Anastasia to think that she can’t be enough for my needs. I want her to realize that this is what I have known, what gave me control, and what made me who I am to a certain degree. But, what Ana gives me is far more than that. I want her to understand this is what I miss about it, and not who I miss.

“But only insofar as I miss the control it brings. And frankly, your stupid stunt—“ I say losing my breath, I stop with the pain the memory brings, “that saved my sister,” I whisper, completely awed by her act for me and my family because she loves me, though I still don’t know why after having behaved horribly towards her. She put her life in the line, and the life of our baby – a baby she and I argued about only two nights before. “That’s how I know,” I whisper.

“Know?”

“Really know that you love me.”

She frowns. “You do.”

“Yes. Because you risked so much … for me, for my family.”

I was ready to love her all my life even if she didn’t love me, or even if I didn’t completely understand her affection towards me. I thought loving her was enough. I have heard her say that she loves me countless times, but still having these dark secrets, I felt that she couldn’t possibly love me, this man I loathe if she truly knew everything about me. Yet, she surprises me at every corner. She loves me regardless of my flaws, and fuckeduppedness, knowing my deepest darkest secrets.

Anastasia’s frown deepens and the usual V, I’ve come to love forms between her eyebrows.

“You have a V here when you frown. It’s very soft to kiss. I can behave so badly… and yet you’re still here,” I murmur. Awed at my wife.

“Why are you surprised I’m still here? I told you I wasn’t going to leave you.”

“Because of the way that I behaved when you told me you were pregnant,” I say running my finger down her cheek. “You were right. I am an adolescent.

Anastasia’s eyes widen, remembering.

“Christian, I said some awful things,” she says trying to take back her words. But I put my index finger over her lips and silence her softly.

“Hush. I deserved to hear them. Besides this is my bedtime story,” I murmur and roll onto my back again.

“When you told me you were pregnant—“ I say addressing my wife, but also invoking the tiniest member of my family, blood of my blood, flesh of my flesh, I stop. “I’d thought it would be just you and me for a while. I’d considered children, but only in the abstract. I had this vague idea we’d have a child sometime in the future.”

Her eyes widen with another hidden desire, but I don’t probe it. Because there are things Anastasia wants to do, and goals she wants to reach. I have seen her fervent desire in London when we visited the Austen house. She devoured the information. She wants to discover the future Austens and Brontes.

“Well, you pulled the rug from under me. Christ, was that unexpected. Never in a million years, when I asked you what was wrong, did I expect you to be pregnant,” I say sighing. I remember the raging, boiling anger, overtaking me, and making lose control.

“I was so mad. Mad at you. Mad at myself. Mad at everyone. And it took me back, that feeling of nothing being in my control. I had to get out. I went to see Flynn, but he was at some school parents’ evening.” I pause and arch my eyebrow. Even Flynn let me be on my own in water, half drowning, and expected me to pick myself up, and grow. In hindsight, it was what I needed.

“Ironic,” Anastasia whispers, and I smirk. Indeed. Then I start recounting the aftermath.

“So I walked and walked and walked and I just…found myself at the salon. Elena was leaving. She was surprised to see me. And, truth be told, I was surprised to find myself there. She could tell I was mad and asked me if I wanted a drink.”

It’s now or never. I have to get rid of my demons, exorcise them. I want to feel fresh; not this heavy load pulling my shoulders down. Ana’s lips part, her chest rises up and down in rapid succession. I don’t want to upset her, but I need to get this out.

“We went to a quiet bar I know and I had a bottle of wine. She apologized for the way she behaved the last time she saw us. She’s hurt that my mom will have nothing to do with her any more – it’s narrowed her social circle – but she understands. We talked about business, which is doing fine, in spite of the recession…” Now, I get to the real point Anastasia is curious about. “I mentioned that you wanted kids.”

My wife’s face is shocked. This is not what she expected. She blinks and frowns. “I thought you let her know I was pregnant.”

I know she thought that, but I would never betray Ana that way, even if I was extremely mad as I was then.

“No, I didn’t.”

“Why didn’t you tell me that?” she asks, completely surprised. Did my wife hit her head harder than I assumed? She never gave me the chance. We had a fight and she put me through the silent treatment, and moved out of our room, breaking my heart, and scaring the hell out of me.

I simply shrug. “I never got the chance.”

“Yes, you did.”

“I couldn’t find you the next morning, Ana. And when I did, you were so mad at me…” I say sighing. I thought she hated me, and she would be well within her rights if she did, but I needed her desperately.

“I was,” she finally murmurs.

“Anyway, at some point in the evening – about halfway through the second bottle – she leaned over to touch me. And I froze,” I whisper, throwing my arm over my eyes with the renewed disgust and apprehension. I can’t divulge more into it, but Ana needs to know.

“She saw that I recoiled from her. It shocked both of us,” I confess. I had allowed Elena to kiss my cheek before, and she could touch my arms which did not create any negative reaction from me. But I had always assumed that it didn’t have the sexual connotation she meant that night. Even in my drunken stupor I knew the difference. My body at so many levels knew that Elena wasn’t what I wanted or needed.

After her initial shock, Anastasia tugs my arms, wanting me to look at her. I lower my arm, and turn my gaze into her wide blues. I must look like ghost with blood drawn. My eyes are wide, and I’m scared of Ana’s reaction.

“What?” she breathes her horror.

I frown and my throat works on a swallow. Hard.

“She made a pass at me,” I whisper, still shocked at one level. Had I allowed myself to think that Elena would never do anything to regain me back into her life as a sexual partner? How could I be so stupid for something that was so evident like the nose on my face.

“It was a moment, suspended in time. She saw my expression, and she realized how far she’d crossed the line. I said…no. I haven’t thought of her like that for years and besides,” I say swallowing again… “I love you. I told her that, I love my wife.”

Anastasia’s gaze is firmly fixed on my face, searching. The truth in what I say? Or to see if there’s more to the story. But she’s searching…

“She backed right off. Apologized again, made it seem like a joke. I mean, she said she’s happy with Isaac and with the business and she doesn’t bear either of us any ill will. She said she missed my friendship, but she could see that my life was with you now. And how awkward that was, given what happened last time we were all in the same room. I couldn’t have agreed with her more. We said our goodbyes, our final goodbyes. I said I wouldn’t see her again, and she went on her way.” I summarize it as clean as I can, but completely truthfully.

Anastasia’s nostrils flare, and she’s deep in thought for a moment. There’s fear and anxiety in her face. “Did you kiss?” she whispers her question.

“No!” I snort my answer. “I couldn’t bear to be that close to her.”

When will she understand that she is my life. She, Anastasia alone.

“I was miserable. I wanted to come home to you. But… I knew I’d behaved badly. I stayed and finished the bottle, then started on the bourbon. While I was drinking, I remember you saying to me some time ago, ‘if that was my son…’ And I got to thinking about Junior and about how Elena and I started. And it made me feel… uncomfortable. I’d never thought of it like that before.”

I don’t tell her about my nightmare where Elena had her hand over our son. That’s too hard for me to think about. I don’t want to upset her.

“That’s it?”

“Pretty much.”

“Oh.”

“Oh?” leave it to my wife to simplify and understate something.

“It’s over?”

“Yes. It’s been over since I laid eyes on you. I finally realized it that night and so did she.”

“I’m sorry,” she mutters.

What is she sorry about? I frown and ask. “What for?”

“Being so angry the next day.”

I snort again. I have written the book on angry. I deal with angry. “Baby, I understand angry,” I say pausing. “You see, Ana, I want you to myself. I don’t want to share you. What we have, I’ve never had before. I want to be the center of your universe, for a while at least.”

“You are. That’s not going to change!” she utters fervently believing in her statement. That’s not true. She’s been an only child. I know how other things, careers, children take precedence over even the love of your life at times. That’s why most people have problems in their relationships, because they let other things take over their lives gradually. I feared losing her, and maybe falling into the trap of that complacency. I didn’t want that future to be inevitable as such. I got scared!

I smile sadly, resigned to our fate. I will never leave her even if she loves another person more than she loves me. “Ana,” I whisper, my voice aged. “That’s just not true.”

Her lips quiver, and her eyes shine with unshed tears.

“How can it be?” I murmur and the dams burst.

“Shit! Don’t cry, Ana. Please, don’t cry.” I caress her face.

“I’m sorry,” she says with trembling lips. I brush my thumb over it, soothing her.

“No, Ana, no. Don’t be sorry. You’ll have someone else to love as well. And you’re right. That’s how it should be.”

“Blip will love you, too. You’ll be the center of Blip’s – Junior’s world,” she whispers. “Children love their parents unconditionally, Christian. That’s how they come into the world. Programmed to love. All babies… even you. Think about that children’s book you liked when you were small. You still wanted your mom. You loved her.”

My brows furrow, I withdraw my hand, and fist it against my chin.

“No,” I whisper. No, I didn’t love the whore. She didn’t love me! She allowed some douche bag to abuse me. She did nothing, not a damn thing to stop! And when the going got though, she checked out! I don’t love her!

“Yes. You did,” she insists crying. “Of course you did. It wasn’t an option. That’s why you’re so hurt.”

I gaze at her, unable, and afraid to look elsewhere. If I do, the horrendous memories will flood.

“Goodbye Christian,” were her last words. Not, ‘goodnight!’ Goodbye. She knew she was leaving me alone in the world. She knew! She hurt me by not protecting me, by leaving me! By being the shittiest mother! I’m afraid to love her… What does that make me? I continue staring at my wife with a raw, pained expression.

“That’s why you’re able to love me,” she murmurs. “Forgive her. She had her own world of pain to deal with. She was a shitty mother, and you loved her.”

She did have her wretched life to deal with. She had no control over her life either. Someone else made the decisions for her, but all the wrong decisions, and all the detrimental choices. Men… endless number of them. And the fucking pimp! I have this urge to find the fucker and make him pay for what he did to her. For destroying every shred of humanity in her so thoroughly that she couldn’t find a way out, except to kill herself before her four year old child. She was a bad mother. But she did a couple of things I loved. She baked me a birthday cake. Chocolate. I felt special, and cherished. Then she would let me comb her beautiful hair. Just the two of us. No one else bothering. A rare moment of joy.

“I used to brush her hair. She was pretty,” I whisper.

“One look at you and no one would doubt that.”

“She was a shitty mother,” I whisper, and even I have a hard time hearing my voice.

She nods in agreement, and I close my eyes, the pain is raw. I’m the son of a crack whore who was a shitty mother. A horrible one who didn’t have the capability to protect her own child. I’ve been told of mothers in the middle of African desert where I send food shipments. Women having nothing to wear, nowhere to sleep, nothing to eat, and they fiercely protect their children in worse conditions. And yet, my own damn mother didn’t do that for me! Don’t they say that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree?

“I’m scared I’ll be a shitty father,” I whisper. Then it’ll be someone else’s life I’ll be fucking over.

Ana’s hand gently reaches to my face, and she strokes in. I find myself leaning into her touch, fill me with warmth, and center me here and now.

   

“Christian, do you think for one moment I’d let you be a shitty father?”

Her determined voice is what makes me open my eyes. I gaze at her for an eternity. My wife is my rock. This little girl can kick my ass with two words. I smile, and feel relief for the first time. “No, I don’t think you would,” I say caressing her face with the back of my knuckles.

What did I do to deserve her, deserve her love? My wife is the strongest person I know. She’d kick my ass, and Elena’s all in the same day – two strong dominants, and raise a child fearlessly on top of that. I am in awe of her, of her strength. “God, you’re strong, Mrs. Grey. I love you so much.” I kiss her forehead. “I didn’t know I could.”

How can I love someone more and more each day? But she manages to surprise me at every corner.

“Oh, Christian,” she whispers.

“Now, that’s the end of your bedtime story.”

“That’s some bedtime story…” she murmurs.

I smile at her remark, completely relieved having left the darkness behind me. “How’s your head?”

“My head?”

“Does it hurt?”

“No,” she replies, confused.

“Good. I think you should sleep now.”

She frowns, unwilling.

“Sleep. You need it,” I command sternly.

She pouts. “I have one question.”

“Oh? What?” I ask, wary again.

“Why have you suddenly become all… forthcoming, for want of a better word?”

I frown, thinking.

“You’re telling me all this, when getting information out of you is normally a pretty harrowing and trying experience.”

“Is it?” I ask in response, knowing full well that I’m not one to divulge information.

“You know it is.”

“Why am I being forthcoming? I can’t say. Seeing you practically dead on the cold concrete, maybe. The fact I’m going to be a father. I don’t know. You said you wanted to know, and I don’t want Elena to come between us. She can’t. She’s the past, and I’ve said that to you many times. You’re my present and my future.”

“If she hadn’t made a pass at you… would you still be friends?”

“That’s more than one question,” I say evasively.

“Sorry. You don’t have to tell me,” she murmurs flushing embarrassed. “You’ve already volunteered more than I ever thought you would.”

My gaze softens. I sigh. “No, I don’t think so, but she’s felt like unfinished business since my birthday. She stepped over the line, and I’m done. Please, believe me. I’m not going to see her again. You said she’s a hard limit for you. That’s a term I understand,” I utter most sincerely.

Anastasia lets out a soft sigh of breath.

“Goodnight, Christian. Thank you for the enlightening bedtime story.” I lean down and kiss her, and her lips take over mine possessively, lighting up the fireworks, and my blood is singing my body.

“Don’t,” I whisper. “I’m desperate to make love to you.”

“Then do.”

“No, you need to rest, and it’s late. Go to sleep,” I say turning off the side table lamp.

“I love you unconditionally, Christian,” she murmurs as she cuddles into my side.

“I know,” I whisper, smiling shyly. “But I love you more.”

Lullaby – Dixie Chix

A Last Confession

What lively lad most pleasured me

Of all that with me lay?

I answer that I gave my soul

And loved in misery,

But had great pleasure with a lad

That I loved bodily.

Flinging from his arms I laughed

To think his passion such

He fancied that I gave a soul

Did but our bodies touch,

And laughed upon his breast to think

Beast gave beast as much.

I gave what other women gave

That stepped out of their clothes.

But when this soul, its body off,

Naked to naked goes,

He it has found shall find therein

What none other knows,

And give his own and take his own

And rule in his own right;

And though it loved in misery

Close and cling so tight,

There's not a bird of day that dare

Extinguish that delight.

William Butler Yeats