Oh wow. I was not expecting so many favorites, alerts, and reviews so soon! You guys are awesome. Also, I don't have this story planned out; I'm more of a fly by the seat of your leggings kind of girl. Also I am 100% open to plot suggestions if you guys have any; just send it in a review or a private message and I'll do my best to work it into the story if it fits. If you spot any grammatical errors please tell me. I proof read these chapters twice, but I'm not perfect. *shrugs*

Once again E.L. James owns any and everything associated with Fifty Shades of Grey. I own nothing! No copyright infringement intended.

I don't know how long I sat crumpled on the floor; long enough for Kate to come barging into my room, her face ashen.

"Ana! What's going on, what happened?" her voice although calm, has an undercurrent of panic and her hands shook. I couldn't open my mouth. What do I tell her? Someone is trying to blackmail my ex-boyfriend using pictures of him engaging in BDSM sex acts? That doesn't really roll off the tongue all that well. And there is also the NDA; I truly can't say anything.

Kate reaches down and snatches the note out of my hand; I make a pathetic attempt to reach for it, but Kate just smacks my hand away. I watch whatever color that was left in her face drain away and the corners of her lips tighten. Christian is going to be furious that Kate knows about his alternative lifestyle.

Kate finishes reading the note and glances toward the bed. There's no use for me to even attempt to hide the photos. She flips through them quickly, studying each photo before moving on to the next. She sighs and sits down next to me with the photos in her hand. I am silent.

"You have to tell Christian, Ana." Her gaze wanders back to the note. I gasp.

"No! I can't tell Christian anything! This person, they know where Mom and Ray live! They will go to the press!" I am hyperventilating. This can't be happening. If I tell Christian he will go ballistic; not only over the note, but because I violated the NDA.

"Ana, Christian is more equipped to deal with this problem than you! He is a billionaire! He has leagues of IT people and legal, not to mention his own security team! Besides this affects him way more than it affects you; either you tell him or I will." The color has returned to her face and her eyes are glinting dangerously. My hands are shaking. How am I supposed to Christian about this, when I can barely face him?

"Jesus Ana what happened to you? When I first met you, you were so strong and independent! You never let anyone tell you what to do and certainly didn't doubt yourself so much. Sure you were a little of the shy side, but never like this! What's happened?" Kate drops the photos and turns to me and grabs my upper arms. "Did Christian do this to you?" The damn breaks and I feel myself letting out tears that are two weeks over due. I sob in her arms for what feels like hours, but was probably only a few minutes.

When I am finished, Kate hands me a tissue from my nightstand.

"I'm sorry Kate. And no it wasn't Christian. Well it sort of was." I sniffle and try to collect my thoughts. "Christian is so intimidating, so intense. Sometimes I want to speak but I feel so insignificant next to him, I feel like I don't matter." Talking about this brings up all the time I stood next to him in my no brand jeans, with messy hair and my plain face. How can ever compare to someone like Christian? What does he see in me?

"Ana, I don't know how many times I have to tell you this but you are beautiful!" She pauses and gets the mischievous look in her eye. "You know what? That's the problem. Maybe you need to see it, to believe it. Stay right here."

I hear her in the hallway putting on her shoes and coat and then she's out the door. I slowly get up and look at the photos; some of them look more recent, and the others are a lot older. Even though Christian hasn't changed much, I can see subtle differences in younger Christians face. Back then his muscles weren't as defined as they are now, and his hair looked a little lighter; probably from being on the rowing team at Harvard.

The women are what make me sick. All of them petite, brown haired and beautiful. They are so similar to me, it makes my stomach hurt. I don't want anything to do with these girls or being a sub. I am not sub material and it was foolish of me to pretend to be something I'm not to please Christian. I agreed to try for all the wrong reasons; I just wanted to be closer to Christian and it has cost me.

I walk into the bathroom and turn on the light. I gaze into the mirror and look at the girl staring back at me; thin, almost frail looking with small pouty lips and an average nose. My hair is what I'm starting to hate the most; after all it is what attracted Christian to me in the first place. If I changed it would he still want me? Would he look at me any differently? I want to be with Christian, but I will not be a fucking sub. Before I let him go, I need to know if he's capable of more.

I hear the front door slam and the sound of rustling bags; Kate's back and she went shopping.

"Ana! Get your sweet little ass into this kitchen!" I allow a reluctant smile to cross my lips; Kate has always had a way with words. I shuffle out of the room and see Kate in the living room surrounded by shopping bags.

"You've only been gone an hour and a half! How'd did you get all this stuff?" Not only are there small boutique store bags, but also three Niemen's bags, two of them garment bags and two Macy's bags. "What are of these for anyway?" I flop down onto the couch; I know I'm not going to like the answer to this.

"These," referring to the boutique store bags. "Are for tonight; the rest is for tomorrow." She reached forward and grabbed my hand and hauled me into the bathroom. "Stay, Steele." She said with a smile and breezed out of the bathroom. Before I could formulate a response to her treating me like a dog, she was back with one of the stools from the kitchen. "You said that you felt overwhelmed by Christian yes? And that you never feel beautiful? Well between today and tomorrow we are going to change that." What? Change it how? Tomorrow?

"What's tomorrow?" I ask.

"Tomorrow is the Grey's charity benefit dinner, in which you were personally invited." I was personally invited? My eyes widen in shock.

"I am going with Elliot and you are going to meet up with Christian and knock him dead with the outfit I just bought you. And after the benefit is over, you are going to tell him about those damn photos and the note."

I swallow nervously. I am going to see Christian for the first time in two weeks; my hearts beats in triple time and my face flushes. Yes, I was to see him.

"Sit on the stool, please." She starts taking products out of the bags and laying them on the counter; tweezers, bronzer, hair removal cream, face masks, and a wide variety of lotions. "Tonight I am going to show you what everyone else, including Christian, sees when they look at you. And while I do this, you're going to tell me more about this Dom/Sub shit."

10 minutes later, now that my face smells like assorted fruits thanks to the face wash and lotions, I begin to talk.

"A couple of days after I met Christian, he gave me a contract; a dominant and submissive contract. It's basically agreeing to adhere to the dominant's guidelines and knowing what to expect if you misbehave." I really don't feel like going into the details of the contract; just thinking about the nipple and genital clamps, makes me nervous.

"Misbehave? So you get punished?" She grabs the tweezers from the sink.

"Yes. Usually in the form a spanking although the punishment is at the Dom's discretion; depending on how bad I fuck up, decides how bad the punishment will be." I stop talking as Kate forces my head up and begins tweezing my eyebrows.

"Okay, I get it. What about the submissive part? I can't really see you as a submissive Ana." She smiles as she steps back and admires her work. She nods and wets a washcloth with cold water; what's that for? She sees my questioning look. "It helps close your pores and minimizes the redness." She gives me the washcloth and I press it to my eyebrow. I continue talking; this is very therapeutic. I've wanted to talk to Kate about this but because of the NDA I couldn't, so I guess the note was a blessing in disguise.

"Well I'm not. I just wanted to try; I felt like I owed him that much since he was willing to try as well."

"Try?"

"I was his first girlfriend, Kate. Before me there was nothing but subs; we were both in unfamiliar territory." This realization shocks me. Christian didn't know what he was doing anymore than I did. He was trying, just like we had agreed and I ran. I am a horrible person. Instead of trying to talk things through with him and tell him what I wanted, I ran like a scared dog with tail in between my legs. I want to cry. "Kate I need to make this right, but it has to be on my terms. I need to know if he wants me for me or if he really wants a sub. I don't want to be made into someone I'm not." Kate stops tweezing my eyebrow. She looks so serious.

"Ana this is why I'm doing this. Ana I love you like a sister and I don't like seeing you like this. I can see plain as day that you love Christian and he loves you." Christian loves me? Do I love him? I know without a doubt that I do. "I don't approve of how you guys got started, but that is not my business. What I can guess is that something happened to him when he was younger; people don't just become this way out of the blue. Someone did this to him and made him this way. I can only speculate on what might have happened but my gut feeling is that it wasn't good." I shudder at the thought of someone hurting Christian makes me want to cry.

Hours later, after Kate made sure I was completely hairless, buffed and moisturized, I lay in my bed. I am beyond tired, but thoughts and questions keep swirling in my head. What I do know without a doubt is that I want to be with Christian. I don't think any man can ever make me as happy as he did. Just the thought of him make me smile and my cheeks warm. But this time I need this to be on my terms and for that to happen, I need to be stronger. Not only physically but mentally and emotionally as well; I have to stop letting people walk all over me. I need to voice my opinion and I can't be scared that Christian won't like it. Our relationship will never survive that way. Also the note; Kate brings up a valid point. I can't keep this from him, it's not fair. Everything he has worked so hard for will be for nothing if these pictures come out and I will never be able to live with myself if I do nothing to stop it. I will tell him tomorrow after the dinner, and let him handle it.

I flip over and snuggle into the covers a fall into fit full sleep, where I dream of grey eyes, ransom notes, and copper hair.


"Kate, I'm not wearing that." I cross my arms across my chest and stare at the beautiful dress laid across Kate's bed. It is a Herve Ledger Bandage Dress that retails for a cool $1.060, but for once it is not the price that is outraging me; it's the lack of fabric. The dress is a black halter and stops mid-thigh. The front has a scoop neckline that sits just below my throat and the sides have a slight diamond shape cut out. The halter straps sit approximately where my bra straps would sit and they connect with two horizontal straps that together, form the zipper that rest against my spine. The dress is beautiful, despite its outrageous price tag. As I gaze at the dress is dismay a memory suddenly comes to me.

"You look lovely, Anastasia. This halter-neck dress suits you and I get to stroke your back, feel your beautiful skin." Just the memory of his voice makes me shudder. He loved Kate's graduation dress and it was a halter, with a similar design to this one.

"Ana is this about you not personally liking the dress or because Christian won't like it?" Kate crosses her arms to and glares at me. I bite my lip. I will admit I am worried that I will look awkward and not at all sexy in this dress, but I am also worried about what Christian might say.

"Ana he will love this dress. The only thing he'll like more is pulling it off of you! Wear it and he'll be putty in your hands." She picks up the dress and shakes it my direction. Didn't I just say last night that I wouldn't let other people influence my decisions, Christian included? Well time for me to put up or shut up.

"I'll wear it." I allow a true smile to cross my face and snatch the dress from her outstretched hand.

"Good; because if we spent any more time arguing over this we would have missed our hair appointment! Let's go Steele; I'm going to make a woman out of you yet!" Kate grabs by the arm and barely allows me to grab my jacket before we are out the door and into the bright morning sunlight.

Hair salon? I should have stayed in bed today.