Disclaimer: I do not own 50 Shades of Grey (thank goodness) and no profit is being made from the publication of this fic.
Summary: What happened to all of Christian's other Submissives? Why was Leila the only one who was ever mentioned?
Chapter One
Anyone accidentally walking into the weekly meeting could be forgiven for mistaking them for a Creepy Clone Convention.
All nine women were tall and slender, with dark hair, grey or brown eyes and a subdued demeanour. There were slight variations here and there, in height, or age, or the shade of the eyes and one of the women being visibly pregnant, but that was all.
Aside from their appearance, they all had one thing in common: they were all ex-Submissives of billionaire Christian Grey, blackmailed into silence about the fact that he was a complete psycho narcissist.
The 'Sub Club' as it was jokingly termed, had been started by Emily, Christian Grey's first Submissive. She had been a few months from her eighteenth birthday, orphaned and trying to get away from the System. The Caseworker assigned to her had been working on getting her emancipated and introduced her to a Family Court Judge at a fundraiser hosted by the Grey family, where she had met Christian.
Still reeling from the death of her family and overwhelmed at all of the legal matters she now had to deal with, Emily had been easy prey for Christian. She saw a charismatic, handsome young man who was only a little older than her, but was willing to support and take care of her until she got a handle on her life.
It was better than the crowded group home, filled with jaded kids with more issues than you could shake a stick at, and BDSM had sounded interesting, so Emily had ignored the red flags. It had taken a few months for Christian's controlling tendencies, subtle at first, to become obvious to the point that she wanted to break it off.
Emily didn't have many friends to begin with, and her family was gone, so it made sense that she should spend all of her time with him, rather than the few acquaintances that she had managed to cultivate while in the System. The type of phone he gave her was one for teenagers, and came with a tracking chip, so his ability to know where she was at all times was annoying, but not out of place. If Christian wanted to spend money on clothes and a car for her, well, Emily wasn't so well-off that she would look a gift horse in the mouth, even if she did ask him to stop being so obvious that people whispered about her being a gold-digger.
Christian hadn't drawn up a contract for Emily, neither of them knowing that one was required (Elena hadn't been foolish enough to want evidence that she was molesting a minor), though she was the reason he went into such elaborate detail with the contracts and NDAs for his following Submissives.
When Christian's constant insistence that Emily was 'his' became intimidating rather than endearing, when she could no longer deal with his outbursts of temper and controlling issues, when she discovered that he had been photographing her and accessing her bank records without her consent, Emily refused to put up with it.
She left, threatening to bring him up on criminal charges if he tried to take action against her, even though Emily knew that the Grey family money would buy Christian's way out. The counter-threat of posting the nude photos of her on every pornographic site on the internet led to a ceasefire and policy of mutual avoidance, which suited Emily just fine.
The bank was another story. Emily called them, demanded to speak with a manager, and informed them that she had not given permission for Christian to access her account, and only the belief that it had been a mistake on someone's part had prevented her from telling the police and every news source she could find about the incident. The manager was smart enough to realise the veiled threat, and promised that it wouldn't happen again and that the perpetrator would be placed on an alert list.
Emily didn't have high hopes that Christian would suffer any real consequences, but if it removed a potential method of control from the bastard's arsenal, so much the better.
She moved to Canada, starting her life over… and kept a discreet eye on Christian via Finance and Business Magazine gossip columns and news articles, and through his adoptive sister, Mia, who had been obsessed with trying to set them up. Emily didn't have the heart to tell the then-teenager the kind of person her beloved older brother really was, but kept in casual contact with Mia anyway. If nothing else, she was a steady stream of mostly-reliable information.
Christian's obsessive need to be the focus of attention led to cultivating a 'reclusive billionaire' reputation, and a steady stream of articles about his businesses, and the occasional sighting of him with a girl. Sometimes it was only a business meeting, but Christian had a definite 'type', and whenever he appeared with a dark-haired, pale-eyed girl, Emily trawled through the article to discover her name, and got in contact with her once the relationship ended.
The Second, Fiona, had met Christian little more than a week after Emily had hightailed it out of Seattle. Clearly, the rich jerk hadn't been as devastated as he claimed, and Emily wondered if he had used the story of a heartless bitch breaking up with him to lure her successor.
Two months after Fiona had appeared on the scene, she was replaced by a girl who lasted six weeks before a news story revealed that she had died in a car crash. Emily refused to call it an accident when Mia complained to her about the Third trying to spread horrible lies about her brother.
Fiona had a degree in computer science, specialising in hacking, and there were BDSM community sites, where the Third had apparently warned all Submissives in the state of Washington to stay as far away from Christian as possible, including screenshots of the contract and the fact that he took non-consensual photos for blackmail, and wasn't very good at honouring safe-words.
The Third also hinted that someone who used BDSM as an outlet for a molested, abused past was probably not someone that anyone sensible wanted in a position of absolute control over them. She had been big on social justice, and was willing to risk a lawsuit if it meant protecting others.
That had explained why Christian, or his bodyguard, or Elena, or whoever, had wanted her out of the way.
The Third was the first Sub of five that they hadn't managed to save, and after that, Emily and Fiona (mostly Fiona) had been far more thorough at investigating and getting in contact with ex-Submissives, even spiriting one or two out of Seattle when the relationship went south. They were also a lot more wary of their own surroundings, and advised the other Submissives to be so as well. Fortunately, Christian seemed to get a lot of his 'security' ideas from Cop Shows and Spy Movies, and his narcissism made him ignore most of his bodyguard's advice, much to the 'Sub Club's relief.
If he ever managed to wise up and actually follow the advice of a professional, none of the former Submissives had any doubt that their days would be numbered.
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A/N: Basically, this was inspired by a discussion with some friends about what we wish would be in EL James's new book, 'Grey'.
Unfortunately, I doubt that we'll be so lucky, so I'm writing it myself. One of the things that bugged me about 50 Shades was that there were so many throwaway lines and sub-plots that, if explored, could have made the book actually worth reading. To what lengths would a former marine-turned-security-head go in order to protect/take care of his young daughter? What is going on between Gail and Taylor? What happened to Leila after she moved away to cause such a psychotic break? How is Christian a billionaire when he has no BoD and makes business decisions based on who he's sleeping with? Why couldn't we hear about that, rather than page upon page of the same boring introspection?
Sorry, rant over.
Anyway, I would love to hear what you think, but please try to avoid personal attacks on either myself or other writers/reviewers. Some of the comments on my other 50 Shades story were downright threatening.
Thanks
Nat
