Fifty Shades and Blurred Lines

by CockEyedGopher

Just when there's a "Happily Ever After" - or so it seems - sometimes Life has other plans...

Chapter 1

"...Is that a boy or a girl?", someone said softly and a loud snicker came from the group of kids standing nearby, quickly stifled because that alone was more than enough grounds to get both the wisecracker and the giggler tossed out of the room on their asses.

It's universally accepted as all-around poor form, to make any kind of derisive comments toward the models. No matter who (or what) is standing in front of you, the goal for an art student is always to focus on the task at hand in a totally dispassionate fashion. This is more about learning and honing artistic technique than ogling a naked body.

Students were taking their sweet time taking their seats and some were just ambling in like they had no cares in the world and showed up to this class at some godawful hour of the morning just because they felt like it and didn't need the credits to graduate.

The one-liner got his attention and he looked up to see what all the hubbub was about, quickly skimming the room before his eyes settled on the clear subject of the "discussion" - he (or she), small, almost frail even, practically drowning in a giant white bathrobe and bare feet. He couldn't get a good look at their face because for the most part this androgynous entity had their back to everyone, shuffling from side to side languidly, balancing their weight from one foot to another, headphones jammed in their ears and an iPod in their hand.

He hadn't planned on being here, in fact this was probably the last place he wanted to be on a Wednesday morning - an EARLY Wednesday morning at that, but here he was, stuck at the very back of the room on a pretty damn uncomfortable stool with nothing supporting his back but the concrete wall behind him. And he didn't particularly like the company; the other philanthropists from the group - some alumni, and some, like himself, not - were annoying the shit out of him. He made nice with them for as long as he could stand before it occurred to him that they were in this more for a photo op and the connections they could make with other obscenely rich people in the area, than sincere interest in charitable work.

He was flanked on both sides by assholes, and he was growing tired of all the undergrad girls openly gawking, even leering, at him. There used to be a time where that kind of thing was right up his alley and he probably would've found a way to become intimately acquainted with all their naughty bits but something in him had changed, it just wasn't his scene anymore.

Exasperated, he found himself checking his watch and looking around the room and studying even the most mundane things, waiting for this class to get started. It was supposed to have begun fifteen minutes ago but apparently the teacher was a bit of a hippie and gave himself and the students, leeway to pretty much do whatever they want, when they want.

Sighing, he looked back up at the person...for lack of a more specific way to put it...at the front of the class. No bigger than a midget, it seemed, and now that they'd turned around and he'd gotten a good look at their face, he was slighty disturbed, because they looked so young - obscenely so. If he hadn't known better, he'd think they were about 15, but he knew no school would hire someone that young for this kind of work, and if they had he'd be the first one pulling strings to get their accreditation yanked.

It wasn't a GOOD face, that he was looking at - not particularly handsome (or pretty) by any stretch of imagination, but there was something about it that he liked, the way that you can know a movie sucks but somehow it still winds up being a favorite anyway. Well, what he could make of the face from this distance at any rate; it was a pretty big classroom.

And they were so small, just standing up there almost eaten alive by that goddamn enormous bathrobe, looking for all the world like Bambi lost in the forest without his mommy, despite the kinda cocky, world-weary body language. They seemed to be going out of their way now to look at everything BUT the two dozen or so human beings in front of them.

The students were still swaggering in at a leisurely pace, playing with their cellphones, whispering among one another and a few of the boys gave Christian some looks that weren't altogether friendly, perceiving him as a threat to their panty conquests, which he could've easily been if he were so inclined.

A few more students made less than kind comments about the human being at the front of the classroom and it made Christian remember one of the many reasons why he'd flaked out on college as soon as the business took off and the money started rolling in - more often than not, teenagers and young adults, are just cunts. He watched impassively as they started to take their seats - again, with no sense of urgency - and pull out their art supplies.

A tall mass that seemed to be all hair rushed past him towards the front of the room and started talking loudly but in that loose drawl that's unique to potheads and called the class to session.

The model - Grey still had absolutely no clue if they were male or female, himself - came forward when prompted by the professor and after the robe hit the floor, the room went very quiet. And very still.

Chapter 2

Impassive, she looked down at the invitation in her hand as this... red-faced, giggly blonde boy leered at her and babbled on and on about the frat party this Friday night ; how it was going to be "fuckin' AWEsome", and how she had to be there. She looked up at him briefly, just long enough to get a good read, and picked up on the smirk and the hormones raging under the surface. He was flanked on either side by his two huge friends who were more or less raping her with their eyes.

She kept her words brief and noncommittal. Yeah, yeah sure she'd think about it. Yep. Okay. After few more skin-crawling glances they all turned and looked at one another like they'd just pulled the greatest scam ever and took off in the other direction.

She felt eyes burning into her back, assumed it was the date-rape football frat boys, and didn't bother turning back to take a look. Even if it wasn't them, she wasn't particularly interested in seeing who it was, because every time she showed up for these jobs it usually went exactly the same.

"I'm not crazy about that restaurant either," he said, falling into step beside her as though they were picking up where they left off in a conversation that never actually began in the first place. She glanced up - and it was a long way up - at him quizzically to determine if he was talking to her. He was.

When Christian smiled at her she whipped her head back to the front and kept striding down the hall and out across the campus lawn. He kept up with her easily and didn't say anything for a good while. He wanted to but thought better of it and besides, the silence wasn't an uncomfortable one.

He should've scared her - he was basically stalking her across the grounds - but somehow he didn't. On some fundamental level she knew he was harmless.

She'd nearly crossed the entire campus, headed toward the intersection before he finally said anything else. "I'm Christian Grey, what's your name?".

She eyed him suspiciously, but the expression on his face was so open and earnest that she knew she'd feel like an asshole if she didn't at least humor him. She hesitated for a beat before blurting out her first name, a little harder and more curt than she intended to because he flinched a bit.

She felt like shit about it. By now they were at the intersection, but she didn't want him following her any further, and she sensed he might do just that unless she found some way to end this...non-conversation. "I gotta go", she said, making a conscious effort to keep her tone gentle, and gave him a guarded but apologetic glance before heading across the street.

For what seemed like a long time, she felt the concentrated energy of his eyes boring into her back.

Chapter 3

"You know, I'm paying you an appalling sum of money and I don't seem to be doing that much better." Christian murmured in a weird mix of amusement and sadness.

"That's not true, you've made a tremendous amount of progress since we started these sessions!" Dr Flynn exclaimed good-naturedly.

"Mm. I don't know about that. I think Ana had a bit more to do with it than you have. Perhaps I should be giving your fee to her".

Dr. Flynn laughed gaily - and loudly - at that and Christian couldn't stop himself from smirking.

It was a long, hearty laugh, so long that after a bit Christian had to set the session back on course, grinning but snapping gruffly "Hey, I'm paying you by the hour here, let's get back to it".

"There are no overnight cures, of course there will be some temporary setbacks" Flynn said, still chuckling.

Christian's eyes widened and he sputtered,"...Temporary setbacks?! I followed this girl clear across Oslin campus. I couldn't even stop myself, and I don't even know why."

Chapter 4

Lying in bed on the verge of sleep he strong-armed his way into the front of her consciousness. She still felt guilt about the way she treated the tall fellow at Oslin, even a day later. He'd actually been pretty respectful compared to most of the people (usually men) who ambush her after those art classes, and that's a pretty rare phenomenon.

No matter the school she was posing at, the response was usually pretty consistent - after the classes she'd find herself being approached and propositioned sexually - sometimes overtly, sometimes not. When that didn't happen, she was usually insulted in some way, again, sometimes directly; sometimes the aggressor was a coward and took a passive-aggressive approach, but however you boil it down, after every session she was usually treated like an animal or a sex toy or a sideshow exhibit.

At least he was decent about it...

Right after class ended yesterday and she'd gotten dressed in the back room, the teacher came and ushered her over to meet the philanthropists that, totally unbeknownst to her, had been sitting in, observing the class. Most of them were older and, apparently undersexed. The men stared - hard. The women seemed to study her with looks of either jealousy or smug pity, depending on what their personal aesthetic was. Not everybody thinks being kinda curvy with a big ass, is a good thing.

They all introduced themselves. She nodded politely, her face totally expressionless, not bothering to commit any of their names to memory. She didn't bother volunteering her name, either. They didn't ask anyway. Besides, about two minutes later the group had broken up into two smaller ones and seemed to be divided by gender; the men were all in her group, except the youngest guy, who'd somehow managed to find himself surrounded by all the female philanthropists and a few of the undergraduate girls. The other men were in her group, some of them covertly sliding their business cards into her hands, smiling at her a little too long and looking a little too eager.

One of the women philanthropists who gave her pity-eyes suddenly thought it was a great idea for them all to have lunch together down the street, at what was probably the most expensive place in town. The idea of blowing what would probably amount to a month's worth of savings on lunch with these alternately leering, snooty assholes wasn't something she wanted to do.

She was mumbling a quick excuse about having classes later that day - all lies - when she felt a new pair of eyes drilling into her.

"I'd love to stay myself, but I've really got to get back to the office" the young guy said softly. He was speaking to everyone but had her pinned with his grey eyes. She averted her glance to the sycamore tree outside.

All the women seemed incredibly disappointed and some started in on him, determined to change his mind by any means necessary including giving him the "Fuck Me" look despite his very-occupied ring finger, but his initial refusal seemed to cause a pretty big distraction. She took the opportunity to escape out a side door.

His...curiosity, interest, whateverthehellitwas, was apparent but there was nothing vulgar or predatory in it. She rolled over in the dark, a new wave of shame washing over her.

Chapter 5

He had the info. That was easy to get, almost a non-issue. At this point he was just trying to avoid using it.

Hope isn't exactly a common name and his private investigators managed to pull up pretty much everything on her in a matter of minutes. Ana used to joke with him about his stalker tendencies and those same predilections were just one of many things that came up regularly in his appointments with Dr. Flynn.

He understood the logical processes behind them, how he came to be this fucked up - he had a fucked up early life - and but like he told the good doc, that knowledge didn't seem to be doing much to curb his actions.

Christian leaned back in his chair and put his feet up on the desk. Everything seemed to be going fine here - it was a Friday morning, after all, the worst toil of the week was over - and he'd found himself with a lot of time to kill, which was making it even harder to refrain from giving in to his more disturbing impulses and heading over to Oslin.

After awhile, fighting it seemed to be more exhausting than anything else and he finally got up and grabbed his coat.

Chapter 6

She exited the art building and was making her way across the lawn again when she heard him call out her name and stopped hesitantly in her tracks before seeming to remember herself and adopting a somewhat defensive, hostile posture.

"Hello", Christian said blithely, giving her a wide goofy smile that took her aback a bit. Today she was heading in a different direction, towards what looked to be the cafeteria, and suddenly Christian found himself inviting her out to lunch off-campus.

"...Hurhuh?" came out of her in an awkward gurgle before she cleared her throat and the shutters came down over her face.

"Lunch. Food. Sustenance...grub?" Christian asked again, looking down at her in amusement.

She looked at him a couple seconds longer, just trying to determine for sure that he wasn't a serial killer, from the looks of it.

He thought she would say no. She didn't.

They were sitting in a booth at the nearest Denny's and Christian was watching her with amazement - she was putting that food away like there was no tomorrow, and he couldn't help smiling.

"My God, you eat like you think it's going to get up from the plate and run away from you."

Hope looked up with a guarded expression, trying to determine if he were insulting her or not. After a quick assessment she replied, "It's not like I'm chewing with my mouth open or something, geez", then promptly went back to shoveling it in at breakneck pace.

Christian seemed to be strangely delighted by it which threw her for a loop.

"Waste not, want not", she blurted, jabbing a finger in the direction of his plate to distract him.

"You should've had juice, soda is terribly unhealthy" he chided, giving her a lopsided grin before picking up his fork and starting back in on his own food.

Hope just kept gobbling her food like it was her last meal before an execution.

"I'm surprised you took me up on the offer, I thought you wouldn't".

"You seem harmless", she said haltingly, after a few seconds of deliberation. She didn't tell him that it was partly a pity gesture, her way of trying to atone for her behavior a couple days before.

"Oh, I'll bet...I didn't invite you to my fuckin' AWEsome frat party," he teased.

That almost got a smile out of her. Almost. She stopped briefly and looked up at him wryly and said sardonically, "Or jam your business card into my hand and tell me I should stop by your office sometime soon."

There was an awkward silence for a couple beats before she started cramming her mouth full of food again.

"You get that alot, don't you", Christian said softly. It was less a come-on than an expression of empathy.

She thought about all the strangers that had approached her in the last few months, and he could see her brain cranking at breakneck pace behind her eyes.

"...Yeah" she said and he picked up on a hint of bitterness in her tone before the shutters came down again and she went back to attacking her plate, but her body language had changed, tense now.

"I didn't ask you here to proposition you," he said, seemingly reading her thoughts.

Her response was all sarcastic, cynical tough-girl, "Oh, you didn't, now?". Disbelieving.

He wasn't intimidated. "No, I didn't" he said and their eyes met in what could only be described as some sort of face-off.

She averted hers quickly and went grabbing for her drink. She didn't ask him why he'd approached her, which he was grateful for because he still hadn't figured that out himself.

The waitress came trotting back over. "Would you two fellas like your drinks refilled?".

"Actually there's just one fellow here," Christian said curtly. The stare he gave was all ice.

"No I'm good", Hope mumbled, her mouth full of food, too busy still devouring everything to even tear her eyes away and take stock of the situation in front of her.

"We're fine", Christian said to the waitress with a dismissive wave and she retreated with an expression on her face that could only be described as a kicked puppy.

"I'm sorry".

"What are you sorry for? That shit doesn't offend me, I'm used to it."

"It really doesn't bother you at all? Incredibly noble use of language, by the way, real classy".

"This is me" she said simply.

She could feel his eyes on her again and he was neglecting his plate. Hope looked up to meet his gaze, and he was studying her intently.

He seemed to be fond of what he saw. "So it is. You've never thought about growing your hair out?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"I like it short, I prefer it short. " Then, haltingly, "Is this the part where you ask me why I don't wear dresses? Cuz I get that alot too."

He chuckled, and it was a merry sound. This time a smile bloomed on her face whether she wanted it to or not.

"It's a shame those pancakes got the best of your smile and I didn't" Christian said, gesturing toward her plate and leaning in closer, lowering his head to try and make eye-contact.

Chapter 7

After pulling up along the curb on the east side of campus, , he put the car in park and then sat very still for what seemed like a long time, clutching the wheel and staring straight ahead, presumably at nothing.

Hope sat beside him still, only because she really didn't have a choice - he hadn't unlocked the door yet, and didn't seem to be interested in doing so anytime soon.

Looking down at her hands in her lap was starting to get old and she was starting to get fidgety and mildly nervous before he finally spoke, so soft and quiet she almost didn't hear him.

"Can I see you again? Can I talk to you?"

Christian kept looking ahead so intently that you'd think he had a gunman aiming a barrel at the back of his head, threatening to blow his brains out if he looked anywhere else.

She hesitated for a few seconds before replying, more loudly than she meant to, "...You want to?", involuntarily flinching at the sound of her own voice, all toughness and hard edges, defensive and suspicious.

Christian's voice sounded strangely raw and choked. "Yeah, I do".

At last, finally, he saw her nod in his peripheral vision and he visibly slumped in relief. Not dramatically so, the gesture was so slight that you'd have to really studying him to notice it, but she was, and so she did.

She didn't know what to do, she hadn't really done anything like this before...after a couple of seconds of thought it occurred to her that this was usually the part in the movies where the hussy handed the man her phone number and strutted away saucily.

Yeah well, this isn't a fucking movie, she thought to herself as she fumbled awkwardly for a pen in her satchel and dropped it - twice . She scribbled her name and email address on the corner of a piece of paper and then ripped it out haphazardly and jutted it in his direction, frustrated. His eyes boring into her the entire time just made her clumsy.

"Thank You", he said and she could hear amusement in his voice. After looking up she saw confirmation in his face, the amusement co-mingled with a bit of what appeared to be smugness. She realized he was fully aware of the fact that he'd unsettled her and clearly got off on it. That angered her.

"Yep", Hope said bruquely, before snapping, "Could you let me out now?".

"Yes, ma'am" he replied, going for the lock. That seemed to knock him down a peg, but only one. There were still lingering traces of self-satisfaction, and Hope hopped out like her ass was on fire, shutting the door with a solid thud - Not too hard just because he's being a cocky jackass doesn't mean I want to wreck his car, she thought - and took off at breakneck speed across the campus like a drill sargeant.

She could feel his eyes on her back again and that just aggravated her and she picked up speed.

She didn't bother looking back but if she had, she'd have noticed that Christian's face had gone all soft.

He sat there watching here until she was a little spot and in the distance, and longer still, til he couldn't see her anymore, before pulling off.

Chapter 8

It was a a damn good weekend, actually; out on the boat with Ana and the kids; a trip to the local festival... a family barbecque back at home, his folks and Ana's family all around; his kid puking on him after too much cotton candy wasn't even enough to mess things up.

One problem - Hope had been playing on loop in back of his mind the entire time.

Sunday night he pulled her number out of his jacket pocket and stared at it. He didn't need it; he'd known her number long before she'd given this to him, but he'd kept it anyway. Christian was in the middle of trying to talk himself out of calling when Ana came in his office.

"50 come on, the kids are in bed waiting for their story..." she trailed off once she got a good look at him. "Honey what's wrong?".

The expression of fear on his face gave way to what looked like relief. "Nothing, baby" he said with a pervy grin. "I'm on my way. I'll put them to bed, then put you to bed."

Ana seemed to like that idea. She always liked that idea. She gave him a grin as she started back out the door and Christian followed his wife out, but not before tossing the paper he held in the trash.

Chapter 9

"...What the fuck?" Hope muttered, staring at her textbook like it was a two-headed baby. No matter how many times she'd gone over this part, she still couldn't make heads or tails of it. She was still looking at it like it'd just farted when the phone rang.

"Hello?"

"It's me", he said softly.

Christian.

"Hey, how are you".

He could hear her highlighter pens squeaking like crazy in the background.

"Little Miss Studious. How's the studying going".

"This shit makes no sense", she suddenly exclaimed, her suspicion and reticence temporarily forgotten due to sheer frustration and confusion. "When it comes time for this test, I'm going to be sweating like a whore in church."

She heard a curious guffaw at the other end and a few weird snorts.

"Went down the wrong pipe".

"Uh huh". Now it was her turn to be amused.

"If you ever need me to help you study, let me know", he said a little while later after a long pause.

"No, that's okay" she answered, a little faster than Christian liked.

"It was a genuine offer, not an offer for sex."

Long pause.

"Yep". She didn't believe him.

"I just want to know you that's all. I feel like I should. I don't know why but I do."

This wasn't going how he'd intended it to but for some reason he was having a hard time doing his whole 'smooth gentleman' schtick with her and it'd been that way since the beginning. It wasn't her occasional rudeness or hesitance throwing him off; he'd managed to make drooling puddles out of women much more jaded.

It was just different with her, and all he felt was just a persistent nagging pull towards her that seemed to intensify as time progressed.

"Pity case?" She said, her tone cutting.

"I'm sure that's the study fatigue talking", he replied in a way that had a second message, unspoken : Don't push it.

She sighed in exasperation and then he had a barrage of questions, most of them abnormal for a total stranger to ask another - when did she last eat; was the front door locked...

"I just want to know you're alright; it matters to me".

Chapter 10

"So it's lust".

Flynn smirked at him again.

Christian sputtered. "No, it's not lust."

"Well, the first time you met her, she was nude".

"No, something about her was nagging at me before that. I couldn't stop looking at her before the robe even came off".

"But, you liked what you saw when it came off, didn't you?" Dr Flynn smirked at him like he'd just won the debate, because he knew what the answer would probably be.

"Hell yeah I liked what I saw, I'm a man! But what I'm saying is that that wasn't the initial draw. " Now it was his turn to smirk, that sideways grin spreading across his face. "No pun intended".

Dr. Flynn didn't look too convinced.

"Look, I tell you alot. You know I've gotten around a fair bit. I've seen a lot of good bodies, that isn't some unusual experience for me. That alone wouldn't be enough to make me respond that way. I do know that much about myself."

"So you have feelings for her." Said like a statement, but Grey had known the good doc long enough to know that it was intended to be a question.

"No, I haven't known her long enough for that. In fact I don't really know her at all."

"Well then you do know Christian that sometimes people are just drawn to others in a friendship context." This time it looked like Flynn was surpressing laughter, at Christian's expense.

Christian saw the humor in it himself and played along. "So that's what this strange new emotion is?"

"Oh, totally! You know, normal people do occasionally like others and want to spend time with them in a platonic context."

Flynn took one look at the utter perplexed expression on Christian's face and erupted into a fit of giggles.

Grey ended up participating himself for a bit, then remembered something. "I was friends with Elena."

Flynn gave him a look.

Chapter 11

Christian peeled down the freeway, still moping morosely about the fact that he'd never actually had a REAL, platonic friend ever in the course of his life. There were a lot of acquaintances, a couple fuck-buddies, a lot of submissives and dominants, a lot of cordial business relationships - "Hey man, let's talk business over golf at lunch" - but no genuine bonds.

At one point in his life he preferred things that way - or thought he did - but now it bothered him.

At the end of his session, Dr Flynn had actually encouraged him to seek out Hope and make friends with her and before Grey had even left the building, he was dialing her and making plans to meet in the campus library.

The place was huge, and he wasn't in the mood to go exploring the place to find her. He got on his phone and started dialing her despite the evil look from the librarian.

"Yeah?"

"Where are you?" He whispered in annoyance.

"I'm hiding over behind the science fiction shit."

"You and that lovely language again. I'm on my way over." He hung up and gave the librarian one of his toe-curling grins and she turned into a puddle in front of him. A big horny puddle.

He found Hope hunched over furtively downing what appeared to be a burger.

"Don't wanna get thrown out" she whispered, crumbs flying out of her mouth like fireworks.

"Sharing is caring" he said, grabbing a few of her fries from the sleeve and gobbling them.

"You're gonna reimburse me for those" she told him. More fireworks.

He grimaced. "Oh, that's gross. Don't talk and chew".

"Whatever!" she exclaimed softly, another gust of crumbs exploding from her mouth.

He smiled at her. She seemed genuinely confused by that for some reason, her dark brown eyes wide, so dark they looked black.

"I'm just glad you're eating, you're no bigger than a minute."

She rolled her eyes.

He narrowed his eyes mischieviously. "You'll pay for that."

She didn't seem convinced.

"Hey, I'll toss all this stuff for you" he said, getting up and grabbing the burger bag.

"No, wait" she hissed. "Dude, my toy is still in there."

The confusion on his face was hilarious. She stood up and went on tiptoe then stuffed her arm in the bad and pulled out the plastic toy wrapped in cellophane inside.

He guffawed loudly then stifled it after a few annoyed glares from students sitting nearby.

"You bought a kiddie meal?"

She grinned.

Thirty minutes later Christian was trying to explain Plato and getting nowhere because Hope was too busy steering the toy car around the tabletop.

"Focus, girl, focus" He scolded her but his face gave him away.

"No".

"Are you hyper?" He giggled.

"Maybe."

He gave her a sideways grin, his grey eyes twinkling at her.

"Hey, dude, I got an idea" - she put the toy car aside and started reenacting the first time they met, using her hands as puppets.

"This is you", she said, and had her right hand chase her left all around the table, laughing.

"Hmm", he mused. "You didn't seem to have that much of a problem with it".

"True. I told you though, I could tell you probably didn't intend to kill me. Plus really that wasn't the first time stuff like that has happened to me."

That got his attention, and not in a good way. "Who".

She shrugged. "It's not a big deal, I'm used to it. Nothing serious."

Hope fell silent and when she looked up she regretted she'd even mentioned it in the first place; Christian looked highly pissed.

"If I knew you'd get freaked out by it I wouldn't have said anything."

"Are you going to tell me who or not?" His tone was deathly serious.

She was sitting there trying to figure out how she was going to diffuse the whole thing when something else did it for her; her stomach, emitting an almost appallingly loud groan.

Hope kept staring down at that table for dear life, frozen still with embarrassment.

And then, a couple seconds later, realization hit him. "You ordered from the kid's menu because that's all you could afford?"

Hope tried to save her ego, and her pride. "No, everybody knows the stuff on the kid's menu is more expensive."

"No, not at Tilt-a-Burger" he snapped, "Look at me!".

His pushiness was becoming a real problem for her, but she wasn't going to confront him about it here. And not right now, because she couldn't be arsed to.

She sighed loudly and looked up at him.

"Come on, get your shit", he scolded her, standing up. "Why didn't you tell me", he hissed.

Chapter 12

"You're not my fucking parent." she hissed at him over the enormous chef salad he'd ordered for her.

She'd been going off on him since they'd gotten there. Somehow she managed to constantly verbally bitchslap him without making a scene whatsoever among the surrounding patrons.

Actually that wasn't entirely true. They'd been getting curious stares from the time they came in, but it wasn't because of that. It probably had more to do with what she was wearing - a t-shirt with a skull on the front and jeans full of rips and holes in a restaurant where the dress code seemed to be formal - than anything coming out of her mouth.

The fact that physically they were such glaring physical opposites probably factored into it too. Most of the clientele seemed to be stuck in the 1940s and genuinely confused at the sight of a tall white guy walking in with what looked to them to be a small black boy.

He didn't give a shit; he was still watching the fireworks display in front of him with amusement. This time, not a hailstorm of crumbs but a downpour of quiet profanity.

Really it was his fault; in the car he was livid, and grilled her relentlessly for details about the mystery stalker; her true eating habits (which she'd apparently lied about to him on the phone); about the fact that she'd been dishonest in the first place...

By the time they'd gotten to the restaurant, he was still upset but had regained control of himself and realized he'd probably crossed one of her boundaries and felt a bit ashamed; and she was on the warpath.

He was fully aware that he was wrong; that was one of the things he'd been working on with Flynn in his therapy sessions - his constant need for control over others, his overprotectiveness...but like a lot of his other issues, just because he was aware of it and knew it was wrong, didn't mean he'd gotten a handle on any of it.

She was silent again as the waitress returned to see if they wanted anything else, giving the uniformed woman a tight smile. When she knew the waitress was out of earshot, she continued to light into him like they'd never been interrupted.

"You're a cunt". She seethed. Harsh, but he'd been that bad in the car. He took it in stride and at this point he was just grateful that she hadn't freaked out on him after his diatribe and demanded he take her back to campus, then promptly filed a restraining order.

She was still here, and she was still talking to him, no matter how hostile, that was a good sign. He just hoped he could fix it.

"Aren't you hungry?" Christian said softly.

She clearly was, but she intentionally seemed to be doing everything but eating in order to make a point.

He looked at her and waited for a response, and she just burned holes in his head with her eyes instead.

"Look, I'm sorry, I just have this thing about eating. It bothers me to see people go hungry."

"What, let me guess, you starved as a kid?" she scoffed in disbelief.

"Actually yeah, I did" he retorted.

Hope flinched a little bit and averted her gaze, looking down into her hands in shame.

After an uncomfortably long silence, Christian started up again. "Don't feel sorry for me, water under the bridge."

Still looking down at her hands, she started haltingly. "There were a few times when I was younger - not often - but a few times where we didn't have an abundance of food, I'll put it like that. A couple times we were scrapping together pennies and other loose change to walk down to the corner store and get a loaf of bread, that kinda thing."

She felt his hand on top of hers and stopped briefly before barreling on, not looking up. "But you seem to think that for whatever reason no one else has any self-preservation instincts and needs you to remind them to take care of basic survival needs. You mean well I know but I don't think you realize it's inherently offensive. Like, 'You need me to remind you to eat otherwise you won't have the sense to and you'll starve to death'. Most people - and that includes me - can and do eat. The ones who don't, it's because they don't have access to any food or just can't afford it - "

She halted, realizing what she'd just done and when she looked up, Christian had one eyebrow cocked up at her as if she'd just proved his point.

"...No, that's not the same thing. I'm not in dire straits. If I were and had no money for any food at all, I have family that I could contact if it got to the point where things were that bad. Yeah, I ordered from the kid's menu cuz pickings are slim right now, but there's a difference between that and outright starvation, and I'm not even so bad off that I'm trying to hunt up money for bread. Even if I was, that'd be my problem and not yours."

"I'd consider it my problem." He said before clenching his jaw. His irritation was obvious.

"Don't worry about me, I'm a big girl. I don't like it anyway. You know what's not a bad idea though - donate some to charity, help with famine relief or something."

"...Been Googling, have you?" He gave her a sly look and that trademark Christian Grey grin.

Hope seemed confused, and after a second he realized it was genuine.

"I already do philanthropic work, actually. I have a few programs going, some in Darfur, other places too."

"Ah! Smart boy".

"Will you PLEASE eat? I swear I'm going crazy, here." He begged.

"Goddamit! Alright dude, fine. Damn." She nodded and at that, he grinned like a pleased child and took his hand off hers so she could grab her fork, and watched her take a few bites.

"See? Mmmm. Mmmmmh!" Hope exclaimed melodramatically and made a big show of rolling her eyes into the back of her head in mock ecstasy.

He rolled his eyes.

"Although", she mumbled in between bites, "They say that a lot of times the money and stuff that's donated to famine relief doesn't even get to the folks it's supposed to. I think some of the food actually ends up rotting in wearhouses because of the local government not allowing it to be delivered to the citizens. It's intentional genocide."

"I don't know about that", Christian leaned back in his chair.

"It's true", Hope persisted. "All the time money collected with that intent winds up being used by the governments for other shit or the corrupt policitans pocket it, or the food just sits there and never gets to the people."

"Mine does."

Hope snorted cynically. "Oh yeah? How do you know."

"I've been there and go every year to make sure it's getting to where it's supposed to go."

"Really?" She looked a little surprised, and more than a little embarassed.

He smiled wide at her, and his eyes were kind. "Yeah I do."

She apologized, grudgingly. "I stand corrected."

"Are you going to eat YOUR food?" She jabbed her fork at his plate in between bites.

"Yeah, I am". He smiled at her again.

She went back to inhaling her salad as he stared.

Chapter 13

"Okay which of these buttons works the window", she laughed, pressing randomly.

"No, not that one. Not that one either. THAT one", he said, taking a quick glance and pointing. She got the window open and leaned back in the seat, grinning with her eyes closed like a cheshire cat.

"If I thought I could pull it off without looking stupid or getting my head lopped off, I'd have my head hanging out the window like a collie."

He chuckled and turned the radio on.

"Why didn't you tell me they don't do doggie bags at that restaurant".

"Who cares!" He exclaimed good-naturedly. "I'm glad I didn't, the expression on the waitress's face was priceless."

"I felt real out of my element there, you know that, right?"

"Most of those people are shitheads and assholes. A lot of those old bastards are fucking crooks who don't care about anyone other than themselves and anything other than making as much money as is humanly possible. You shouldn't give two shits what they think of you, they're shit compared to you."

"You aren't exactly poor yourself," Hope said, and pointed to the interior of the car to prove her point.

"True, but it's not about that, it's about the kind of person you are and how you go about making the money you do get. "

"What kind of person are you? Do you make your money in an above-board manner?"

He got the feeling she was testing him and intentionally being contrary and provocative.

"You tell me. We've interacted long enough for you to be able to get a basic read on me, whether I'm a shithead or not." He turned and looked at her quickly, meeting her gaze before turning his focus back on the road.

He'd proven his point. It was pretty obvious to her that he was fundamentally a decent person.

It'd taken Christian a long time to get to the point where he could see that in himself but with Flynn's help and Ana's, that was one thing he did finally manage to learn - I'm not that bad.

The self-loathing was gone.

Hope didn't say anything else and he knew that she understood.

He went flipping back and forth through the radio dial and nothing jumped out at him. He suddenly had an idea.

"Hey, Hope? Do me a favor, pick a station here for me."

This was all bullshit, of course. if he wanted he could've just put on other music, but he was curious to see what she listened to. She was opening up but still kind of guarded with him; he was looking for some kind of insight no matter how small.

As always, the initial hesitation on her part...before an exasperated, "Arghhhh...", and her plunging forward toward the dashboard, rolling the am/fm tuner first in one direction, then the other...before he heard loud, mid-tempo percussion.

"Ah! This. This. I love this song, from when I was a kid."

She turned it up louder, just a little bit.

He turned and glanced at her again, and she was beaming. That alone was enough to make him turn it up a bit louder, and ask her who the artist was.

"This is The System".

"...The System?" He asked curiously.

"Yeah, that's the band name. The song is 'Don't Disturb This Groove', this is classic to me, you wouldn't know anything about that," she was still beaming. It was contagious.

Chapter 14

Studying wasn't getting Hope anywhere; she was just going in circles and none of this stuff made any more sense to her than it did a few days before in the library. To be fair, Christian had done his best to try and help her with it but at that point she'd been in the library for a few hours trying to study that stuff. Her attention span for Plato was fully exhausted by the time he called, insisting upon showing up to tutor her.

She pushed the book aside and found herself doing what had, strangely, never occurred to her at all until he mentioned it - she Googled him.

She was wondering what rock she'd been under, that she'd never heard of the guy before; apparently he'd been all over the press for his business and charity work, and was apparently considered some young dashing heartthrob, like a young, hotter, American version of Richard Branson, until he married some time ago.

He was married? She'd had no clue. He hadn't mentioned a wife; then again he really hadn't mentioned a whole lot about his current life or what he does at home at all, and whether or not there was anyone waiting when he got there.

Hope didn't know how she felt about it. Or maybe she did, and all the emotions contradicted each other and made her uncomfortable. He said he wasn't after her in any physical or romantic sense and his actions seemed to confirm that, and he hadn't lied to her or led her on. He wasn't really responsible for any of the things she felt. Namely, disappointment.

She wasn't sure why she felt that way then a few minutes later she admitted to herself that she was a bit attracted to, and interested in, him. That was her problem though, not his, and she really did enjoy the company and like him as a person. Even though on a surface level it wasn't readily apparent, it was clear they had a few things in common and seemed to be hovering around the same wavelength, which wasn't really a common phenomenon for her.

She didn't make friends easily at all due to her reticence, and downright weird, outspoken nature. Whatever friends she did make, there tended to be a rather high turnover rate and the friendships never seemed to run that deep, the friends summarily replacing or dismissing her when when they found someone more...SOMEthing...to hang out with. People tended to use her as a placeholder in that sense.

What it boiled down to, is that she hadn't really had true friends, and seemed to be finding one in Christian, slowly but surely. She wasn't going to compromise that by admitting any attraction to him, especially now that she'd found out he was married. She'd found herself mired in a similar quagmire once or twice and wasn't going to wind up in the same shithole again, and it wasn't right to do anyway. She was older now, and when you know better, you do better.

Still, she couldn't help how she felt. Not devastated, but admittedly bothered a bit. She rolled her eyes, sighed, and climbed into bed and soon there was nothingness.

Chapter 15

"Fear not, young hussy; for I cometh bearing gifts...of pizza." He said melodramatically, bowing with a flourish. It was an interesting sight because he somehow managed to do it without dropping and demolishing the pizza even though he was balancing it on one hand.

"...Young hussy?" She cocked her eyebrow at him and tilted her head to the side, feigning offense.

It wasn't working, Christian was too good at reading people. "Young wench, then? Hoochie, maybe?"

She smirked. "Better than 'young bitch', I guess."

He straightened up and his face had gone serious. "I wouldn't say something like that to you."

Hope shook her head. "I was joking".

She stood there blocking the entrance to her apartment and there was an awkward silence for a couple seconds before he volunteered to go first. "You wonder how I found out where you live, don't you."

"Not really. In this day and age it's not really that hard to track down anybody if you know where to look. Doesn't hurt to have a few bucks to do it with, either."

He studied her. She wasn't lying; her lack of surprise was genuine, and there was something in her tone when she said it that made him want to ask questions but he wasn't sure what to ask so he didn't bother and just stood there looking down at her.

After a few more seconds a goofy, bright grin broke out across his face. "Can the pizza guy come in or are you going to pay me and send me away?".

She thought a few seconds and realized that she wasn't sure if she'd want ANY human being to see her place right now, it was resembling a dump a little at this point, before deciding that if he wanted to be her friend he had the right to know what he was 'getting', so she let him in.

"Gee, your house is immaculate", he piped sarcastically, chuckling.

"Oh, fuck off" she retorted, and that sent him over the edge, his voice booming and bouncing off the walls as he laughed.

"I'm surprised you didn't bring tofu and bean sprouts", she grinned down at the pizza.

"I wanted to; I thought about it. Then I realized you'd probably starve to death before you'd touch it."

"You guessed right".

He plopped the pizza right down on the living room table in front of the tv and opened the box, grabbing a huge piece all in one swift motion as he sat down on the sofa.

Hope followed suit, sitting crosslegged on the floor next to the table, never taking her eyes off the tv.

"Hairspray?"

"...Hmm?"

"The movie." She could hear the humor in his voice.

She turned to him. "Yeah, I love this movie, and the original one is perfect; I'd never watch the remake. Why?".

"Not what I imagined you'd be into. I was thinking more horror, or something like that."

"...You know what? Hold on." She hopped up and left the room.

He watched her leave curiously then went back to watching the movie, before she reappeared and set a pile of dvds on the couch next to him and spread them all out. All horror - stuff like "A Nightmare on Elm Stree", and various "Friday the 13th" movies; "Candyman"...

He laughed again, and she nodded. "Yup, exactly."

"What else?"

"Some action, a few martial arts movies."

"Leave it to you to have no chick flicks other than Hairspray". He smiled.

"That's not true. I have a few romance movies, but they're all stuff from Asia, Takeshi Kaneshiro movies. I don't like American rom-coms. I have some Lifetime Network type stuff too, like 'Not Without My Daughter' ."

"So there is a girly streak in there somewhere".

"Hell no. Some men are sentimental and romance-minded too, that's not unique to women."

"You're not a man."

"My brain works like one, I might as well be."

He sneered and blurted out, "No matter how you think your brain works, you don't pee standing up, men can't give birth, and you definitely don't have a male body."

There was an awkward silence for a couple seconds that would've turned into a longer one if Christian hadn't diffused it almost immediately by burping - loudly.

"Dude, what the fuck? That's so rank. I hope you didn't aim that shit in the direction of the pizza."

"No I didn't, what, do you think I was raised by wolves?"

"Not now, this is the part where they do the limbo." Hope pointed to the movie.

"That dude looks like Elvis", he said, pointing to Link.

"No shit." Hope replied.

Chapter 16

He only had one piece of pizza then he was off, down the freeway again, heading home...he didn't want to be late for dinner; all he wanted was to drop by and say hello and make sure she was eating. He was careful to do things in a way where he didn't offend her pride and make her feel like a charity case and felt good about himself when he realized he'd pulled the whole thing off successfully.

His phone vibrated and he ignored it, no way was he checking that thing while he was in the middle of driving. He turned the radio on and fiddled with the dial again, before hearing something familiar, that same mid-tempo percussion...he turned up the volume...

After he pulled up at home and parked his car, he checked his phone and saw a message from Hope, that she'd sent thirty minutes before :

"I'm not stupid, I know you came over purely to feed me. Stop fussing over me, I'm fine. I do have food. If you'd checked the cabinets (which I'm surprised you didn't do, you're that pushy), you'd see they're full of food now, because I got paid and went grocery shopping yesterday. Hope is not amused."

He smiled and stuffed his phone back into his pocket, rushing into the house. It was almost time for supper.

Chapter 17

Later that night Christian settled into bed for the evening. He wasn't awake long; it'd been a long day at the office and he'd been busy - happily so - at home the rest of the night and was exhausted. It was pissing down rain outside also, and that helped.

His mind make a seque from conscious thought to the world of dreams, almost seamlessly. Somehow reality bled into the dream and the downpour in waking life found reappeared in the fantasy realm of his imagination, but he was out in what appeared to be an endless, totally abandoned field of knee high grass in the dark.

The rain was coming down so hard he could barely see, and so loud he could barely hear, but he thought he heard someone call his name faintly somewhere in the distance. He turned his head as best he could in the direction of the source; after a while longer he heard his name again, this time more clearly.

Hope.

He called after her and ran closer. It seemed like forever before he got there, to what appeared to be a large lake, or even an ocean. He couldn't see her anywhere and then panic surged through him when he realized the sound was coming from the lake.

My God, he thought. My God.

Without a thought he bounded into the water after her, swimming out in long strong strides and screamed her name. He still couldn't find her. He took a deep breath, hoped for the best and went under.

A lightning arc seemed to light the entire sky and it was enough for him to just barely make our something in his peripheral vision a few feet away, something thrashing. He got there and realized he felt first an arm, then a leg.

He grabbed her by the shoulders and shook, hard, to snap some sense into her. If she was still flailing like that when he tried to drag them out of this mess, she'd end up drowning them both.

She stilled, and he grabbed her, attempting to somehow tow them both back to shore but the water tossed them around like toy boats in a bathtub and before he knew it, they seemed to somehow be much further from the shore than they were before he even found her. In fact, they seemed to be stranded out in the middle of the endless sea, and he couldn't even see land anymore in any direction.

He heard a noise and looked behind them and saw an enormous wave mounting and heading right for them. Oh shit.

He looked at her and saw terror - real terror - in his eyes, exceeding even his own, and he was petrified himself. He knew they were going to have to go under to avoid the wave; he figured out pretty early on that she couldn't swim - he'd heard her coughing up seawater minutes before when he first pulled her from under and tried to tow her back to shore.

He gathered his racing thoughts and took a deep breath then turned and screamed at her. "You're going to have to trust me".

Her eyes wide, frantic, she nodded.

He took a deep breath. "When I pull you down, you come with me. Don't breathe until I tell you to."

She looked afraid, uncertain of what he might do, but he could tell from her expression and the way she looked at the approaching wave a few seconds later, that she was more afraid of it, than him.

"Don't fucking breathe until I tell you, and hold your nose closed." He repeated. "Exhale - NOW, and HOLD IT - then wait for my next move. Don't try to come up out of the water or breathe until I PULL you up myself."

He waited until he saw her do it, then grabbed his own nose with one hand before he took a deep breath and lunged, planting his mouth firmly on hers, over hers, and wrapping his free arm around her. She was so small it seemed almost as though it could fit around her twice. As he did it, he used his body weight to propel them both underneath the water.

Reflexively she struggled against him at first but he held her tighter, almost like a vise until she calmed down. Then he used the full force of his diaphragm to force the air out of his lungs, into his mouth and down into her body.

He waited a few seconds, his mouth still pressed firmly against hers, for her lungs to forcibly expel the air again. As they did he took it back in himself, breathing deeply, and fired himself up, up, like a gunshot, out of the water again, taking a couple deep, gasping breaths quickly before holding it and submerging himself again, back at her side, and planting his mouth over hers again, forcing more air in.

He'd taken the last few breaths on the surface in the nick of time; as soon as he'd gotten deeper into the depths again the horrific tidal wave swept over them both a few feet overhead. She couldn't hold the air inside any longer and her body pumped it out involuntarily into his system.

He was starting to get nervous. It seemed like the wave was taking a while longer than it should to pass over them...and with each passing second he became more and more panicked, and then after what seemed like forever with no change, his fear heightened into pure black horror.

It seemed like the wave wasn't going to pass completely, anytime soon. They had only two prospects, neither of them good. He looked her in the eyes and it was just a living hell, all he could see there was pure agony.

She wsa looking at him pleadingly and he could read her expression, Please do something.

Please do something. Please.

I can't, baby, I'm sorry, a non-verbal dialogue from one to the other.

He ran his hand over the side of her face, caressing gently. He could tell from her expression alone that she was crying.

He lunged for her again, this time wrapping both arms around her forcing his lips onto hers again, this time parting them, kissing her. He felt her stiffen for a second in shock before her arms went around him, clinging on for dear life, accepting and returning the kiss, as the force of the water propelled them down somehow, even further into the depths as they started to drown.

He woke with a start and a gasp, as though he'd been holding his breath for an extended period, perspiring.

Ana moaned in her sleep and shifted positions, turning her back to him. Somehow he hadn't managed to wake her up.

He hopped from the bed like it was on fire and went stumbling into the bathroom, still panting, dousing his face with cold water in the sink. He saw his frantic expression in the mirror and took a deep breath, trying to get his bearings. After a few seconds, he trotted out of the bathroom, then the bedroom, into the closet and made a beeline for his jacket, his cellphone.

Chapter 18

"You showed up at her house in the middle of the night?" Even Dr Flynn seemed surprised, and he usually wasn't taken aback by anything Christian did - or said.

Christian nodded, and - totally unlike him - his cheeks colored visibly. Dr Flynn had never seen him flush before. Ever.

"Yeah, apparently what we're doing here, isn't working very well." He finally said after a long silence, and an even longer look that made Christian feel even more fucked up than he did just a few minutes before.

Christian's face went even more red, and he actually dropped his head and started staring down at his hands. A clueless observer would've thought this guy suddenly found his palms to be the most interesting thing in the world.

Noticing his silence, Flynn pressed on. "How did Hope react to that?"

"Believe it or not, she didn't really seem all that pissed off or even that caught off-guard. I don't know if it was because she was just that damn groggy and half asleep or what. She let me in and I remember just grabbing her by the shoulders and checking her over. I kept asking if she was alright. She jsut seemed really confused, I don't think her eyes were even open all the way."

"Pretty mellow kid, it seems." The good doc mused.

"...Kid? She's actually a few years older than me, she just looks like jailbait."

Flynn waved that off dismissively. "That's beside the point and really taking us away from what we need to be discussing, which is the dream itself. Tell me what happened, and everything that was said."

Grey recounted the entire dream to him at breakneck speed, conveniently leaving out the almost telepathic conversation at the end, and the kiss.

But Flynn knew him too well. "Is that all that happened?"

Grey hesitated, wondering if it was even a good idea to tell Flynn about that part but ultimately decided that if this were ever going to work, if he were ever going to improve, he couldn't lie by omission.

Sighing, he blurted out the rest of the dream, going out of his way to avoid all eye contact with the doctor.

"It might be a good idea for you to stop...seeing...one another". Flynn told him, softly after a long pause.

Christian's response was immediate. "No." He stated flatly, no discussion. "No".

"The lines are getting blurry here" Flynn pressed on, "And right now you don't seem to have a good handle on your impulses, even less so than before. If this continues on you might do something you regret later."

"No, that won't happen" Christian snapped.

"It won't? Whether you're aware of it or not, you're clearly developing feelings for this girl, and rather fast, too."

"It was just a dream. You've even said yourself that not all dreams are literal and have a significant meaning in waking life."

"I know that, but based on some of the other things you've told me before, I'm not sure how well that applies to this particular situation."

Christian stared at him silently, his face impassive and his jaw set firmly. His grey eyes were burning into the doctor however; the only thing that gave him away.

Flynn knew with that look that the subject was no longer up for discussion. Grey would do what he wanted to do; Flynn just hoped he didn't wind up ruining his entire life in the process.

Chapter 19

Hours later Christian sat in his home office, working at eight in the evening, out of necessity more than any real desire to; he'd been slacking off for the past day or so and that alone was enough for him to wind up with a pile of incomplete work on his desk. Things he needed read, sign off on - things he needed to fax...

He was about halfway done whem the annoying twat from a couple hours before, instant messaged him again; he had no idea who they were, and how they'd gotten his account name. He'd ignored their first few messages, but they were persistent.

Most of it was cryptic, pseudo-intellectual, "esoterica-for-dummies" bullshit and he got the feeling that whoever they were, they weren't altogether tightly wound mentally.

He continued playing dead on them. Fifteen minutes later, she wrote him again :

"It would be wise 2 stop being rude and reply 2 me immediately, lest u find urself set adrift in the seas of Hell by hopeless friends. 3 "

He wasn't very impressed in their ham-handed, grade-school level wordplay, nor particularly intimidated; he was an Ivy League boy. He'd known brilliant people that would eat beginners like this for lunch and shit them out the other end.

What provoked him to respond at all, was their reference to Hope. How did they know her. How did they know HE knew her?

That trademark Christian Grey arrogance and fire came boiling to the surface in his reply :

"For one's current and future reference it'd be wise to remember that veiled threats against well-lawyered multi-billionaires probably isn't a smart move."

He went back to hammering his way through all his work, or tried to...ten minutes later, the person instant-messaged again :

"R u f34rful?"

Their bullshit junior-high games of one-upmanship, bored him and he suddenly felt certain that they weren't all that bright or well-read, but certainly seemed to believe they were; maybe he'd read some kind comments about Hope into what they said that weren't there.

He decided not to bother replying, but suddenly remembered Hope's passing reference to a possible stalker, and her reticence about the subject. That set him off.

"Fear does not exist in me. However, it's something that will be a very real issue for you in a legal sense if you persist on seeking out the uninterested."

He wasn't lying. Lack of courage wasn't something that had been a real problem for him in general. As a kid he was always rushing headlong into fights, never shied away from a challenge and that wasn't something that had changed with time. If that were the case, he wouldn't have gotten as far as he had.

Almost immediately he got a response. "Eye'm not INterested in ur threats; eye'm ABOVE the LAW. It would also be WISE to heed my warnings about ur personal choice of friENDs."

There was a link below the text. For a second he contemplated whether or not he should click on it. But viruses and trojans weren't an issue; his computers had ironclad security, the best money could buy; world-class professionals made sure his equipment were a veritable fortress.

Then he found himself wondering what he might SEE when he clicked; but that concern didn't last long either. It took a great deal to shake him up; he'd either seen, done or heard about, pretty much everything.

He went ahead and clicked on the link, leaning back in his desk chair.

A second later, he bolted upright again, flying into a blind, silent rage.

Chapter 20

"You can't make me stay here", Hope choked out at last. Her voice echoed slightly in the uneasy silence of massive, sparse hallway.

"You don't really have a fucking choice", he said coldly, striding past her into the kitchen area to see if the fridge were stocked according to his specifications. He nearly knocked her over in the process, and didn't give a whole lot of a shit about it, if his body language were any indication.

Normally she had more chutzpah than this, but at this point she were genuinely afraid of him and not really sure what she could do and how far she could push things. He'd pretty much charged into her house for the second night in a row. But whereas the night before she felt no sense of fear, this time he'd truly scared the shit out of her and seemed to be in some stage of rage so far gone that her sense of self-preservation told her it would probably be a better idea not to provoke him any more than necessary.

She'd never felt that way towards him before, but when she saw his sudden sea-change in temperment, it reminded her that even though she'd felt like they'd known each other for much longer, they'd really just met and didn't know each other that well at all. She'd thought she knew him like the back of her hand, but at this point she had to admit to herself the lack of sense in that, and realized she had no idea just what he was capable of, and what he would (or wouldn't) do.

Hope had an idea of what this was all about - He knows, she thought - but was waiting for him to actually confront her with it. He still hadn't, not back at her apartment, or on the long drive to this sterile, cold condo in the middle of nowhere.

She heard his footsteps, loud on the marble floors, and involuntarily flinched as he made his way back over to her double-speed. When he looked at her, she almost seemed to be bracing for some kind of strike, and that stopped him in his tracks. He took a deep breath, and started over to her, slower and more gently this time.

She looked up at him and he suddenly seemed much older than the had before , his expression impassive, but his eyes were still harsh.

"Don't go to class tomorrow. Stay here. Don't leave until I tell you to."

She just looked at him, and said nothing, averting her eyes.

He appraised her expression and body language. "If you leave anyway, they will fucking kill you."

She looked up at him. He said it rather mechanically, like he didn't care much either way. Now he suddenly couldn't meet her eyes anymore, and looked away.

She interpreted that as an opportunity to resist. "They've been making those threats for years, it's just shit-talking, I'll be f-"

"Are you stupid? No, you won't. They made it clear that your time is short if they get ahold of you. Get that through your fucking head." He snapped.

Hope flinched again, but this time he didn't care. He kept right on, "I'm don't want you getting your goddamn head blown off, on my fucking conscience. Even if you are a fool and walked right into it."

He hesitated. "Or...deserve it."

Christian turned away from her, and picked up the manilla folder he'd been toting around since he showed up at her apartment two hours ago. He'd never even mentioned what was inside, or even opened it until now, yanking out all the contents and chucking them in her direction, flying around her like flurries in a blizzard, and she involuntarily shielded herself from them, as they sailed down lazily, gathering in a haphazard mess on the foyer floor.

He stood there watching her, this little, vulnerable thing with her hands and arms thrown up as if to protect herself from a barrage of blows, the papers and photographs raining down around her, and something in him felt disordered and broken.

Just as suddenly, he found the anger resurfacing, at a level so intense that even he found himself concerned what he might do and stalked out of the condo before he did something he couldn't fix.

Chapter 21

Dr. Flynn stared at him, challenging.

Christian stared daggers back at him. As fond as he was of the Doctor, he had no plans to tell him a goddamn thing. Sure, he hadn't finished college, but you don't wind up a multi-billionaire before the age of 30 if you're a moron, and he knew that telling Flynn everything going on would be an inherently stupid thing to do. All healthcare professionals are required by law to report any kind of crime, and the last thing he wanted to do was get law enforcement involved in any of this.

Sure, what Grey had done qualified technically as kidnapping, but it went beyond that. Included in the link were pictures of he and Hope together, and the meaning was obvious - either went to law enforcement about the stalking and threats, the photos would find their way into the newspapers. Pictures of them making their way across Oblin; having lunch together off-campus - all things that would be more or less innocuous if he were single and didn't involve the same woman in all the photographs, who wasn't his wife or an employee, and he wasn't about to risk losing his family.

"I'll handle this on my own", he repeated to Dr. Flynn flatly. This was not up for debate.

Apparently Flynn felt particularly brave today. "Did you sleep with her?".

Christian looked at him incredulously.

Flynn blinked at him, his face expressionless. He wanted some kind of definite reply, and he clearly had no intention of dropping the subject until Christian gave him one.

"Absolutely not", Christian elaborated, and his contempt and borderline disgust at the thought were palpable.

Flynn sized him up for a few seconds, trying to determine the level of truth in the statement. Finally he seemed satisfied that he'd just been told the truth, but rather than drop the whole thing he seemed to have even more questions. "I thought you two were making decent headway as friends?"

"I decided you were right, that it was best to end all contact." A mechanical-sounding lie.

Flynn wasn't letting up. "So I was right, you were developing feelings for her?".

"No," Christian piped up immediately. "I love my wife. Hope was...just a girl."

Flynn arched an eyebrow at him in surprise.

Christian sighed in exasperation and continued on, "I don't even feel like I can call her my friend. She...lied about a lot of things. Alot. There's a bit of a sordid backstory there with that girl that I don't want to get into right now. Suffice it to say, she wasn't what I thought she was. She's just a girl to me now."

Flynn stared at Christian intently, expecting to hear details.

"The specifics don't matter. All that's finished now." And with that, the shutters came down and his face became an unreadable mask, his voice emotionless as he reached for the glass of water next to him.

Flynn scrutinized him over his eyeglasses, trying to get some kind of read on Grey and coming up short.

Ana was getting curious about the "secret project" that Christian was working on, but he managed to satisfy her with a few random comments about it being boring, work-related drivel, just a bunch of mathematical figures, percentages, and endless takeovers and mergers.

The curiosity was understandable on her part - after having dinner and spending time with her and the kids, instead of turning in for the evening he'd have to leave to drive to some unspecified location.

"I'd think you were cheating on me if you weren't fucking my brains out every morning", Ana mused, giving him a light kiss as he headed out the door into the night. Ana had no idea about the condo just outside the state border; Christian meant to tell her but just hadn't gotten around to it.

He'd bought it months ago but had never gone there until three days ago - his initial intent was for it to be a place to spend the night when it got too late to drive or fly back home; he was sick of hotels and wanted something a little more permanent, where he actually had an idea where the towels had been and who'd slept on the bed before him.

He brought Hope there out of necessity - some of the pictures included in the link, were of the inside of her apartment; some of them taken when she clearly wasn't home - the place was empty; some of them taken while she was there, completely oblivious by the looks of them. Some of the pictures were of her in bed at night, asleep; he lingered over the shots of her sleeping face. Others were even more disturbing; pictures that appeared to be taken in her shower stall as she was bathing; pictures of her sitting on the toilet. Someone had let themselves in her house on multiple occasions to sniff around, and apparently - to install hidden surveillance all over the place.

Some of the pictures were of him and Hope having their pizza dinner; and the night he showed up to check on her after his drowning nightmare, and the pics of the two of them striding across Oblin campus and having lunch together.

He flew into a rage as he looked at them and lit into the woman who sent them...who promptly replied with a few cryptic death threats, and seemed totally unfazed at Christian's explosion on the other end of the conversation. Instead she sent him more links, these apparently, from years ago, and different residences. In some of them, Hope waved her middle finger mischievously directly into the camera, or made faces. Some of the other pictures were sexual - her nude form in the shower, masturbating...

The woman had told him that Hope was fully aware of the cameras and consented to it, and would intentionally do those things knowing she had an "audience".

Christian shut off his car radio as he sped down the dark freeway, the anger boiling to the surface all over again at the memory of it.

And there was more, still more. The exes. All Hope's exes were rock musicians, household names. Millionaires. The woman told him that she intentionally sought them out, in pursuit of fame, fortune. She bounced from one to the next to the next, in fairly short succession. She'd slept with the last one, the woman had told him, the day she met him and then the man had stopped returning her calls.

And there was more beyond that...so many things, that after awhile part of his brain "checked-out" of the whole conversation; he was incapable of processing any more. He insisted on bringing the exchange to an abrupt end at that point. A few minutes later he'd been en route to Hope's apartment.

The next day the woman IMed him again, and as usual, didn't seem all that intimidated by his rather hostile response. Instead, she'd sent him an offer of sorts. She, and Hope's exes, and a few of their other friends, wanted to meet him, and discuss the whole thing in person.

Grey made it clear that it was an invitation he didn't appreciate and wouldn't make use of, in typical, priceless Christian Grey style, and that was that. So he thought.

The woman insisted on replying again, presenting the offer to him a second time. She had a feeling he'd eventually take them up on it.

Chapter 22

He knocked brusquely as was the established routine, then unlocked the door and let himself in, making a beeline for the refrigerator. He wasn't really sure when he'd be able to get her out of here, but he figured it wouldn't be too much longer; he had a security force and firm of private investigators looking into matters. A newly-hired, separate team that didn't involve Taylor or any of his primary security staff; he didn't want any of them to know what was going on at all.

Christian hadn't spoken to her again since he'd brought her here. She'd had the feeling that it wouldn't be a good idea for her to try to initiate conversation with him, and that was correct. He clearly wasn't interested - typically he'd go directly to the refrigerator, check the food levels, then turn right around and let himself back out. He wouldn't even look at her; she'd stare at his profile as he strode past, his jaw set in a hard line, his blazing grey eyes fixed stubbornly ahead at some undefined point in the distance.

But as always, Grey was full of surprises and tonight he threw her a curveball, stopping in the living room doorway and calling her name woodenly, like it was a foreign language he sucked at and didn't have much affection for.

She'd been sitting crosslegged on the floor directly in front of the huge tv, despite the fact that there were massive, incredibly-comfortable looking couches and sectionals behind her, filling the enormous living room.

Her doing that struck him as sort of sweet and childlike in that moment; it was always one of the things he'd liked about her from the beginning, that childlike earnestness, sweetness and playfulness once you got past the bravado bullshit and her somewhat volcanic temper. He remembered her racing the toy car around in front of her in the campus library and the expression of sheer joy on her face when she heard a song on the radio that sent her on a nostalgic trip, and something in him started to thaw; then he remembered the photographs, and the things she'd done in the past, and felt himself turn into a glacier all over again.

Hope was mildly surprised to hear him and turned around curiously.

She looked at him expectantly, wide-eyed and suddenly Christian lost his train of thought. He blinked at her impassively for a couple seconds then it came back to him; he crossed the enormous living room, retrieving her cell phone from his pocket and handing it to her. "The security staff checked your phone for trackers and bugs; it's clear. Return any calls you missed immediately; last thing we need is someone filing a missing person's report."

His tone had been softer than he intended, and Hope picked up on it sensing an opportunity to strike, sighing and mumbling in exasperation, "I already know to do that - "

He cut her off. "That wasn't me initiating a conversation with you." His tone wasn't mean, but it wasn't friendly either. Curt, businesslike.

But not curt and businesslike enough. She started up again and he could hear the lava stirring inside her and slowing making its way to the surface. "You can't tell me when I can fucking speak or not."

It hit him like a slap and now it was his turn to visibly flinch, but he regained his mental "footing" quickly. "I'm not going to argue with you, and I'm not here for that. Tomorrow I'll have a few staff stop by and stock the fridge again and clean the premises -"

"- When can I go back to school? You can't keep me here." She repeated again, a slightly frantic edge to her voice.

"This is for your own safety -" he started, infuriatingly slowly, as though he were talking to a child, patronizing.

That was enough to send her over the edge, "No shit!" she exclaimed loudly. Her expression immediately changed to one of shame.

But not enough to apologize. She sighed and split the difference. "I appreciate what you're doing here, but this can't go on indefinitely. I have school, and I want to finish. And I'm not gonna spend my life locked up in the boondocks, and you don't have the right to do it. I wouldn't rat you out for this, but when I want to take off, I WILL take off and there's not really a whole lot you can do to stop me."

"If you take off, I will find you."

She leaned back and gave him a look of disbelief. "Is that a threat?"

"No, of course not, don't be silly. Why the hell would I keep you here to protect you then threaten to harm you."

"I don't know. You don't exactly make sense to me at this point. I thought I knew what you were like, but after the last few days, I'm not so sure if I really knew you."

"I think I'm more entitled to self-righteous anger than you are", he replied cuttingly. Hope fell silent and involuntarily her gaze went down to her palms, and her lap. He immediately felt a wave of remorse.

He felt as though he were adding insult to injury at this point, but...it had to be done. He pulled up one of the huge, plush ottomans beside her, and took a seat, fishing the Non-Disclosure Agreement from his pocket, then producing a pen from inside his blazer.

"I need you to sign this."

She asked what it was, and rather than tell her, he just passed them to her.

"You want to muzzle me". She said bitterly.

"I want to protect myself and my family". He corrected her.

She looked like she wanted to say something, but then shook her head and signed the paper, handing it back to him.

"Thank You", he said, and his tone was softer again.

Suddenly he felt talkative. "There's something I want to ask you."

She turned to look at him again quizzically.

"All that...for money, for fame?" Clearly rhetorical; he knew how the world and people worked, he wasn't some young naive forest nymph.

Her reaction was immediate, as though she'd been slapped. For a split second it looked like she was about to fly off the handle, then just as fast she looked like she might break into tears, but she didn't. She set her jaw firmly, and then, lifting her chin just slightly and straightening her back, she faced the television again and acted as though he'd never said anything to her.

He sat there on the ottoman staring down at her intently for what felt to both of them like a long time, but probably wasn't more than about thirty seconds. Finally he turned his attention to the television - some documentary about tree frogs. The narrator started talking about the mating habits specific to the species, and that's when he got up and quietly left the room, down the hall, and out the front door.

Chapter 23

Christian got back in the front door, made his way to their bedroom and Ana was fast asleep - as expected at this ungodly time of the night. He climbed in bed next to her, exhausted but it wasn't long before he realized sleep wasn't going to be an easy prospect; his mind kept racing like a hamster on a wheel. Images, recent memories passing through his head...

The first time he saw her - tiny, the enormous bathrobe...when he spotted her again, after class in the meet-up with the jackasses from the Weiser charity, their eyes meeting - hers, huge, brown, and kind, but wary...

Following her out into the hallway as soon as he could get away...watching with amusement as she fended off a couple frat guys with that disinterested, world-weary, too-cool-for-school thing that was clearly part genuine, part affectation and self-protection.

Then his mind decided to skitter around in an illogical order, going back to the start of the art class, when the robe came off and hit the floor...the room fell silent, and slightly, almost imperceptibly, the raising of her chin; the lopsided, cocky smirk of victory on her face at everyone's palpable surprise...

And her dancing, mischievious eyes.

Chapter 24

"Everybody's entitled to a bit of arrogance, so here is mine : I have a body that can start wars and sink ships."

He read the Tweet and laughed. Throughout the workday during free moments - and there were a lot of them, today was a slow day - he'd read the bits of content the mystery stalker had started sending him, things Hope had written or posted in various places over the years.

Christian wasn't bothering to respond to any of the IMs, he just read the links the woman sent him, and apparently she had plenty. Hope apparently had a very 'blue' sense of humor - which Christian had picked up on himself almost immediately - and she loved profanity. The woman sending the links didn't seem as charmed by it. He found himself thinking wryly that the woman probably wouldn't like him very much because his own sense of humor would make Hope look like a nun by comparison.

Some of the stuff Hope'd said and written had him in stitches and a couple times the secretary came into his office to give him a message and left looking at him in surprise; hearing him laugh like that was rare - the last time was one day when he had his kids by to visit.

Some of the quotes he read were really intelligent, eloquent replies Hope had made about various subjects - that wasn't really new to him either. He'd picked up on her intelligence the times he'd talked to her over lunch - when she'd stop eating long enough to get a few words out. In fact he'd suspected that she were extremely intelligent and a lot of her quotes confirmed that.

As time went on, the posts the woman sent him started to become less thoughtful or comical, and some were abusive, extremely so... even that didn't totally surprise him, because he'd gotten a taste of Hope's temper a few times himself - a couple nights ago when he brought her phone to her at the condo, and the second time they went to lunch, when she lit into him, calling him a 'cunt'.

He didn't doubt that the posts belonged to Hope at all, because they were clearly written in her very specific style of communication - not many people talked or phased things the way she did - but he didn't see how any of it was justification for any kind of harassment, abuse or death threats, and found himself wondering what had been omitted from these exchanges, what these people had said or done to her to elicit that type of vitriol from her; he knew from firsthand experience that she typically wasn't that bad unless she were provoked.

Even if she were a gold-digger or a user, that was worthy of a certain amount of contempt, sure - but the way they chose to handle it still seemed...batshit crazy to him.

And even though the idea of offering herself up to people to get certain things out of it, pissed him off and disgusted him, he had to admit it was a somewhat judgmental and even hypocritical stance since he'd paid for sex himself in D/s clubs in the past, and his own birth mother was a prostitute.

The woman kept supplying him long extended explanations on why everything Hope did was so unforgivable and terrible - and it wasn't making any sense to him from a logical standpoint because none of what he'd read so far, seemed that bad to him. It was like there was a fundamental disconnect there, where Hope would say one thing, and the woman would twist her words and extract the most sinister meaning from it that was humanly possible.

He was starting to wonder how many of the other things the woman told him, even had a basis in truth; whether they were legitimate or outright lies or warped misinterpretations of things Hope had said and done. He suspected most of it didn't have much of a basis in reality.

The two things he couldn't get over, were Hope and the webcam streaming, and her sleeping with this guy. That was the part that still gave him trouble at the end of the day as he drove home from work and found himself clenching his jaw at the thought. Imagining her fucking this...asshole...

The fact that he even cared about that, disturbed him too, enough that he didn't want to look at it too closely.

"Maybe I feel that way because at one point we were friends, and I just feel protective of her and worried about her making stupid choices and being mistreated", Christian blurted, exasperated, the next day in Dr Flynn's office.

"...Maybe". Dr. Flynn said, but he didn't seem all that convinced.

Christian suspected he had more to say. As always, 50's instincts were razor sharp.

The doctor continued on, "Well, how would you feel if she were sleeping with someone that you knew was decent and cared for her?"

The good doc looked at Christian like he'd just won the round.

"Why the hell would I care? I'd be happy for her, happy for them both."

The doc just arched his eyebrow at Grey again. He wasn't buying it, and Christian wasn't even sure he was buying it himself at this point.

His guilt, and discomfort, were clear on his face.

Chapter 25

Hope sat under a tree on the campus grounds during lunch, eating a cafeteria burger and flipping through her textbook. She stole a glance at the bodyguard sitting a few feet away, standing out like a sore thumb, then stuck her head back in her textbook before she freaked him out with her constant staring, she'd been doing it all day so far.

Christian hadn't really told her anything other than that it was probably okay to go back to school, accompanied by a bodyguard, and that he'd been looking into things and handling the situation. Hope had tried to ask him questions about it but he shook his head no.

"You can go back to school", he just stated flatly, businesslike.

The time he'd brought her phone to her and asked her about fame and money was pretty much the last time he'd spoken to her like she wasn't an employee or someone he was being forced to interact with.

In the days since then, his visits had become more and more infrequent; he increasingly relied on staff to do the things he'd done initially and when he did show up he was very formal and brusque, which bothered the shit out of her. She preferred even his anger, to this, barely even seeing each other and feeling like they didn't even know one another anymore.

She didn't say anything because she'd become used to the pattern. For years, the people stalking her would approach anyone who appeared to be getting fond of her or attached. Most of her burgeoning friendships or relationships in the years since this all started, usually ended with the person getting weird, cold and distant, even hostile, on her, the more they heard about her. Eventually, they either avoided her altogether or staged some kind of petty argument to use as an excuse to end the friendship.

It always happened the same way. None of the people ever really confronted her about what they'd heard; it was something never discussed. The energy between them would just change. Christian was pretty much the only one who ever actually mentioned any specifics to her, and even he only said a few words about it.

She'd learned because of it not to invest too heavily from an emotional standpoint, in most people. Usually when they started to pull away from her, it didn't bother her too badly anymore because of that. But she'd managed to get more emotionally attached to Christian than she realized. In a lot of ways they were so different, but in a strange paradox, they seemed so similar in terms of fundamental temperament.

In the past when she'd find herself in this circumstance she'd usually try and fight for the friendship and her good name, but it seemed to be a waste of time and in fact sometimes it seemed to have the effect of making people run away from her even harder and faster. Now she didn't bother anymore. When people wanted to go, she'd stand clear of the door and watch them go.

She felt eyes on her and looked up; this time the bodyguard was staring at her.

Their eyes met for a long while.

Mike gave her a wide, blinding grin. "This is probably the best assignment I've had in a long time".

Hope tried to surpress her smile but found it pretty much impossible. Mike - her bodyguard - was a pretty nice guy, albeit in a constant, perpetual state of horniness, but he was so humorous and harmless about it she found it impossible to really be defensive or suspicious of him.

He wasn't supposed to be hitting on her, obviously; it was against the ethics of the profession, anyone could see that but it wasn't really that serious - they were both relatively young - he was five years older than her - but they got on like a house on fire and neither one really had any intention of ratting him out to the boss anytime soon so who cared.

He was attractive, and admittedly Hope found him attractive, but he was so silly that for the most part she could only really see him as a friend. Really they just enjoyed exchanging banter with each other now. They had a routine down - he'd hit on her with good-natured, innocent humor, and she'd say no in some deadpan, totally sarcastic way and they'd both dissolve into laughter and then shoot the breeze together for awhile.

He was relatively new to Seattle and clearly lonely and hadn't really made many friends yet; and Hope was a perpetual lone ranger; other African-Americans weren't all that common in the area either, so they made fast friends.

"You're the new guard." Hope heard as a shadow stepped seemingly out of nowhere, looming over them both.

She shielded her eyes against the sun and looked up. Christian didn't sound too pleased.

He wasn't. Actually if the look on his face were any indication, he was highly, highly pissed off.

"You are?" Mike had gone into hardass bodyguard mode.

"I'm your fucking boss." Christian, deathly quiet.

"Sir", Mike stood up immediately and went back into all-business mode, looking slightly fearful. He was fully aware that he'd been caught breaking a fundamental, heavy-rule, and had probably fucked himself.

"Come on, let's go to lunch", Grey said waving at Hope to stand up. He turned to Mike and barked, "Call Thomas in about thirty minutes, he'll have another assignment for you", then took Hope's hand and started across the quad in long, determined strides. She could barely keep up and felt more like she were almost being pulled along behind him.

She turned around and looked back at Mike, smiling apologetically. He waved quickly, almost timidly; and then as Hope returned the gesture, Christian felt her movement and turned to look.

"Oh no, you fucking don't", he said, pushing her arm back down to her side in mid-wave. He looked past her down the quad at Mike, and the expression on Christian's face was enough to make Mike step back a bit, even though they were yards away from one another at this point.

Christian was still semi-pulling her across the quad at breakneck pace and Hope alternated between trying to keep up and trying to break free of his grasp, but by this point he had his hand clamped down around her forearm like a vise grip and escape seemed unlikely.

"In", he ordered, once they got to his car. She yanked her arm free just as soon as he loosened up on it. "Have you lost your fucking mind?" she hissed.

"Get in the fucking car." It wasn't a request, but she was extremely adverse to making a scene on-campus, in fact she wasn't big on public spectacles in general, and besides, even though he was irate, she figured out by this point that he probably wouldn't hurt her.

"Cunt", she hissed, her usual go-to insult as she climbed in and he sped around to the driver's side.

"Fuck you!" He snapped just loud enough for her to hear.

He got behind the wheel, took a couple deep breaths, started the car and pulled off.

Chapter 26

He drove like a boy-scout; a picture perfect citizen, even though he was clearly livid, faint red spots of flush on both cheeks, and his jaw locked. She could see the muscles attached to it working at a frenetic pace. His eyes seemed to be lit up from inside as though he were somehow possessed, and he kept running his hands over and through his hair.

"What the fuck do you think you were doing?", he started up again once they were about three blocks from the school, his tone way too measured and controlled. He was trying not to scare her by yelling but somehow this seemed even worse.

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"You and the bodyguard? What the fuck do you think I'm talking about", he snapped.

By this point he'd gotten on the freeway and picked up speed; she had no idea where he was taking her. "I have a class in about thirty minutes", she said, too gently, like she was trying to calm down a four year old in the midst of the tantrum from hell.

He ignored her, speeding down the freeway, staring straight ahead.

By this point she was fully aware what this whole scene was about, and it threw her for a loop. She didn't say anything because she didn't know what to say, and really, what could she say?

It wasn't until ten, fifteen minutes later that he finally spoke again, calmer this time, soft, even. Kind. "Cat got your tongue?".

She hesitated before repeating, "I...have class again soon".

"I know, I heard you." He said again, softly but he didn't turn off the ramp and head back towards the campus.

She looked ahead and out the side window, trying to figure out where they were going - she'd never been out this way, before - and she could feel his eyes on her. Suddenly she couldn't bring herself to meet his gaze, so she went back to staring straight ahead again.

He turned his focus back to the road, then a short while later she saw him turn his head again in her peripheral vision, felt his eyes on her and suddenly felt like a specimen being studied in a lab.

Suddenly it felt too hot, and her hands felt shaky. She didn't want him to see, she felt ashamed of it, and clasped them together tightly in her lap. She could feel his eyes still on her, and finally turned and looked at him.

His eyes were warm and his face ... confirmed her suspicions.

"We're almost there", he said, still soft, gentle. The eye contact was too much for her and she had to look away because she felt like he was looking too far into her; it felt too...close, somehow.

He finally turned his focus back towards the road.

Ten minutes later his mood seemed to change, almost as though he were right back where he started when they'd gotten in the car.

He was angry with himself, and feeling guilty as hell - what the fuck am I doing? he thought. He wasn't single; he had a family. He loved his wife, he loved his kids. He felt ovewhelmed by guilt again; the same guilt that had been making him avoid coming to check on Hope at the condo; the same guilt that, he supposed, made him tell himself right from the beginning that he only saw her as a friend in the first place.

Most of all, he hated himself - for what he was feeling. He figured it had to be some kind of vital, fundamental character flaw that led him to this point. He never pretended to be a saint - in a lot of ways he had a somewhat 'fluid' idea of right and wrong; but when he did feel a sense of morality about things, he was very precise and definite and the lines were clearly marked and he felt strongly about it.

He applied that to his business dealings - to be as fair and above-board and decent as possible; and especially to his private life, his interactions with other people. He strove to be as honest and upfront as possible, and to do the right thing as much as he could. It was his intense sense of ethics that led him to be as upfront and blunt with Ana about the BDSM arrangement and his past and issues, as he was.

And here he was (he'd finally forced himself to admit the truth) in love with this girl, who was not his wife.

The amount of shame and anger that swelled up in him, was almost unbearable and he had to find someplace to shift the blame or direct his hatred towards; Hope became the obvious choice. Because she was there next to him now in his car; because it was all her fault, and because she was a sleazy piece of shit and seemed to be a convenient, justifiable place to dump all this...bile. And he was still fucking PISSED - that was really no understatement - about seeing her sitting way too close, and too fucking friendly both today and yesterday, to the assfuck who was about to lose his job in five minutes, the sorry sonofabitch...he'd had a private investigator reporting back to him the entire time.

This was all her fucking fault, this stupid piece of ass, with her stupid fucking choices, passing herself off to the first dumbfuck who pays her any attention, hoping for a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow; who didn't even care enough to respect her own body and privacy, dignity and life, this total fucking moron beside him.

Somewhere in the last half of this mental diatribe, it became an external, verbal one too - he'd been off and going and hadn't even realized it; he heard his own voice exploding through the interior of the car and it scared the shit out of him; he could only imagine what Hope was thinking.

As vulnerable as she appeared to be (and was), he knew she was still a surprisingly strong girl; he'd realized from reading the last leg of the mystery woman's links - all of them excerpts of arguments they'd had with Hope - that she'd been through a lot of shit in the past few years - a lot. And somehow she managed to keep it together, and by all accounts, wasn't really the weepy type.

That's why he totally didn't expect to see her pressed against the passenger door, crying. But she was. Profusely.

It wasn't as much what he said as Christian thought it was, that did it. It was more along the lines of, Hope had been through so much over the last few years that his sharp words were just the needle that popped the balloon. What he had said bothered her, yes - but she'd been holding onto alot - alot - in recent history and in one way or another, taking some kind of verbal abuse almost constantly when shit rains, it pours, and she'd had enough dumped on her that, like Stephen King said about Carrie White, things had come to a fever-pitch.

Fission.

Christian heard a sharp cry and then a litany of insanity; profanity flying out of her mouth rapid-fire - she was giving as good as she'd just gotten, and said some things that rivaled and even outdid the wounds he just tried to inflict on her, and that set him off; and then it was a good thing they were out in the middle of a more or less empty freeway, driving out to God Knows Where, because both of them were screaming at the top of their lungs, the craziest, most abhorrent shit ever to one another, beside themselves and unbelievably, unfathomably livid. She was crying still, and he was screaming at the top of his lungs, his voice choking out in raw, anguished, irate gasps.

Things were so far gone that Grey was doing something totally unlike himself - driving recklessly, too fast even for the freeway, taking his eyes from the road for stretches of time that were way too long; the car even swerved around in the lane a few times; he was driving like a drunk man.

After so long, they'd finally made it to his intended exit and both sanity and self-preservation returned to him just enough to get him down to a safe speed and observing all the traffic signals out on the street properly.

Even so, neither one had stopped screaming at each other, and by that point Christian had gone hunting through his music collection, jacking it up as loud as he could to try and drown out their screaming from passing cars and pedestrians. As it happens, none of them could hear anything anyway from the outside other than the slight, muffled beat of the bass, and no one could see them because the windows were tinted.

He'd chosen the song on auto-pilot, without conscious thought, and put it on repeat; it faded out and started up again, as their screaming match continued on, unabated. By this point both of them seemed to be getting hoarse, but neither of them seemed particularly interested in letting up, and even in his upset, conflicted state, he realized he was flushed, and intensely turned on. The more he looked at her, the more he could hear her voice shrieking, echoing around the interior of the car, the more he screamed back at her, the worse it got; his hands started to tremble slightly on the steering wheel and his face was mottled red and he could feel the sweat collecting.

Her body language was erratic and weird, and hyper in this hysterical, almost charged way, as if an electrical current were racing through her, and Christian was a perceptive man before anything else. He took all this in in what seemed like milliseconds, and by the time he turned into the underground parking garage and the car was cloaked in darkness, he stopped screaming long enough to unbuckle his seatbelt, then hers, and lunge at her like a starving jaguar pouncing on its prey; both his suddenly movement and the unexpected sensation of his mouth pressed on hers startled her into silence after her initial gasp, Christian breaking away just long enough to hiss, "Shut the fuck up", before forcing his mouth back onto hers and then it was all happening so slow and so fast all at the same time and the only sound anyone could hear from outside the car was the muffled bass and inside the car there was nothing more the involuntary cries two bodies make as they collide and "Inertia Creeps" by Massive Attack looping over and over and over...

Chapter 27