She looked at herself in the mirror. Gaunt face, hooded eyes. Lank hair, taut hollowed cheekbones. She glanced around her living room, her gaze feeble. Crumpled up pages of her fifth rejected manuscript littered the floor as a light layer of detritus, hiding the thick layer of dust below. A general aroma of dampness hung in the air. She hadn't opened the windows since the publisher's rejection letter had come through the mailbox. She hadn't been outside since then. She wiped a thin hand across her face, just for the sensation of a human touch, even if it were her own. The flickering red LED of her answer machine caught the corner of her eye and she turned away. Her latest excuse of a viral infection to miss work had gone down like a lead balloon and a pink slip was on the horizon. She sighed. Just barely twenty-seven, she felt aged, vulnerable.

It had been six, long and arduous years.

Still, she thought of him.

Still, she craved him.

Still, she regretted the day when she let those elevator doors slide closed on the life she had been too afraid to admit she desired, too afraid to admit she needed. Sighing, she dropped back on the ratty sofa and rolled over to her side. Her t-shirt that had doubled as her nightdress for the last five days was matted, grubby. Pushing it upwards, she reached back and let her fingers caress the smooth and supple skin of her bared behind. She could still feel his hands there. Could still feel the bite of his wide palm crashing down on her raised and trembling buttocks, could still feel his soft and delicate fingers as he'd explored her, hungry for more and more. His hands had always been so warm, so intricate. But then there'd been that belt. That belt that had been ruination of all. She recalled, as she had done a million times before, the terrifying bite of the leather as it had seared into her skin, marking her like cattle. She heard his groans of ecstasy and remembered the hot, salty tears as they'd coursed down her cheeks.

That belt had been the swift beginning of an even swifter end.

But if she could go back in time, if she could have another chance at understanding…things might have been different. She hadn't really tried to see inside his mind, to comprehend the enigma. The caring and the callous. She hadn't been able to bridge those two together, to see them as two halves of the same person. All she could see was a monster. An animal who got his rocks off as he wailed on her bare skin with a strap of thickest leather. They had moved too fast, and that had been her fault. She'd insisted. She'd ordered, she'd dictated. She had told him in no uncertain terms that she wanted to see the absolute highest end of the spectrum. She'd willingly laid herself bare for him, she'd willingly taken every single stroke.

And then she'd ended things like she was cancelling her cable.

Blowing her limp fringe out of her eyes, she rolled over onto her stomach and buried her head in the sofa cushions. It was getting worse. Day-by-day, it was getting so much worse. The yearning was shifting from psychological to physiological. She tingled when she thought of him, her heart quickened. Her search history was a choreographed time-line of his life since the day she'd walked out on him. He'd never been photographed with another woman. Rumours of his homosexuality were once again rampant. No denials had been issued. His borderline monopolistic industry was booming. Reports of him being voted the USA's most prolific workaholic under forty were rife. His torso was fuller, he'd been working out. He was even more handsome with flecks of grey beginning to prematurely splinter throughout his dark hair, a permanent five-o-clock shadow adorning his chiselled jawline.

As she breathed in the musty scent that seemed to scream of her alone-hood, something seemed to snap.

She couldn't do this anymore.

She was floundering.

She was drowning. She was close to the edge, and another day, week or month without him was suddenly intolerable, unbearable.

She needed him.

She needed him, now.

…

A/N: First fifty shades fic. To be a multi-chaptered one. Not my usual style/fandom, but I've recently been re-bitten by the Christian Grey bug ?

Inks x

…