Despite the plentiful and pretentiously vintage that litters Escala, I rarely partake.

Alcohol impairs the senses and reduces control. A loss of self-control is very rarely acceptable to me, but tonight, is the slam fucking dunk of all exceptions. Andrea is fielding my calls, save for my personal cell, and she is in for the mother load of all raises. Not a single question did she ask, not a single syllable of nauseating pity did she utter, and not a single awkward silence did she initiate. She acted as if the interview with WWN was just another press release, like I was announcing another branch of GEH's expansion. She was all Mr Grey this and Mr Grey that. Nothing was different in her efficient tone.

Flynn will have a label for it, but her efficiency is everything I need right now.

She is one of my three most trusted and valued employees. If she can act as though my sordid past is nothing more than a situation to be managed, then so can Taylor and Ros. The rest of my masses, I don't really care about. They still fear me and fear, rightly or wrongly, inspires the respect that I so unhealthily desire and need. There is a possibility, that even with the disease-ridden cat out of the darkest of bags, that I can still maintain my CEO persona. There is a glimmer of hope that I can still walk the halls of my own creation and that glimmer of hope is what I needed this evening, above all else. The conversations I had with my mother, father and siblings took everything I had in the personal sense of things, I need the professional sense of things to remain simpatico with strident success.

I stand and stare out the glass pupil of my window into the night.

Seattle twinkles innocently up at me. She is the same city I have always known. There are no plumes of smoke rising from the epicentre of my life. There is no support group of placard clutching chanters assembled outside my building. Everything is the same, nothing is the same, and everything and nothing are one in the same. Fuck me, this is yet another reason why I don't drink recreationally. It makes me philosophical. Mia tells me that I'm annoying enough without adding another irritating trait to the pile. I see my rare smile in my reflected image as I think of her. If there was an alternate universe out there where I was well-adjusted and normalized, with a healthy reproductive drive, Mia is everything I would want my hypothetical daughter to be.

Pure.

Kind and pure.

I think about the proposed… date? I'm not sure on the appropriate vernacular, I've never been in this situation. But I think Matthew asked me out on a date. As in, a social meeting involving the consumption of alcohol in a public place with no business or societal benefit. Is that a date? Does he think I'm gay? Is he gay? I could have Taylor check, but then would he think that I'm gay and going on a date with my fellow survivor? Of course, there's absolutely nothing at all wrong with being gay, but I don't want Matthew slipping into his silkiest of boxer shorts because he thinks he's on some kind of promise. I don't put out that way.

I said yes.

I mean, sure, I understand the theory of it all. I've seen Elliot stumble in and out of the house with his cohort of loyal yahoos. He and they have been drinking, womanizing and socializing since high school. They're friends. I always thought it was such a strange concept. There was nothing to be gained from placing trust in people you cannot control. I'm sure Elliot has spilled his deepest, darkest secrets to his trio of bromantic loving pals over the years.

How does he sleep at night?

Maybe it's because I'm getting a little on the tipsier side of things, but I'm more confused by the concept of friendship than ever before. I've never had a friend. I don't know how they work. But… I cannot deny that I like Matthew and I'm not used to liking anyone. I tolerate people because they are an unpleasant means to a wealthy end. I've never found myself at ease with anyone other than my family. Ever. Perhaps it's the psychological kinship I share with Matthew, our vat of shared experiences, but I felt relaxed around the good doctor today.

This whole trial bullshit is absolutely messing with my head.

It's when I'm weighing the pros and cons of pouring my sixth Scotch that my cell rings.

I do not recognize the number, but it's my personal cell, so hey fucking ho.

"Grey."

Sometimes, silence is more revealing than words and I instantly know who it is.

"I saw your spotlight interview today, boy. Yours and that self-righteous little prick of a Matthew Delaney's. Up until today, I was willing to let this bullshit go. I really was. I was amenable to the concept that you were having some kind of mental fucking breakdown, and that you'd snap the hell out of it with some well-placed medication and a trip to Hawaii. But what you've done today is a declaration of a war that you cannot win, you snivelinglittle shit. You think Jake is all I have? He was the warm-up to the warm-up. He was nothing. What I have coming down the line for you is going to be your destruction, of mind and body. You betrayed me, you ungrateful little bastard. You were my favorite boy, my most prized possession. You turned out even better than my wildest of dreams imagined. And in one fell swoop, on the crackpot advice of a bowtie wearing Brit, you've ruined everything we ever built."

I wait for it.

The fear. The cold-water shock kind of fear that shuts down your internal organs, spasms your neurons in painful paralysis, leading to a slow and inevitable death. But it doesn't come. Her hissing, spitting voice doesn't pierce me, doesn't shock me, doesn't faze me. How she got my new cell number is a more pressing concern than the deluded and deranged shit she's spouting. I see myself frown in my reflection and Seattle frowns right back up at me.

"Elena, how did you get this number?"

Even her silence smells of desperation.

"Christian Trevelyan-Grey, you pompous little shit from the tenements of Detroit, you better open up those overlarge ears and listen closer than close. There are some acts and actions that are recoverable and there are some that are irrevocable. What you've done today flits somewhere in between the two. You can issue a public apology and unqualified retraction and I may let sleeping dogs lie. If you cannot or do not, then we enter solely into irrevocable territory and you will never recover from the application of my insurance policy."

I lean my forehead against the cool glass and sigh the sigh of a pensioner.

My ears aren't overlarge. They're perfect.

"Elena, will you ever accept that what you did to me, to Matthew, to all the others… was wrong? Do you ever lay awake at night and think of the lives you ruined, the childhoods you stole? Or do you honestly and truly believe that the incomprehensible consent of a broken child is justification for your criminal predilections? Is it truly beyond you to look at things through objective eyes and see yourself for the predatory beast that you are? My mother and father trusted you, Matthew's mother and father trusted you, and you betrayed that trust in the most disgusting manner known to fucking man. And your response to being challenged about thatis to talk shit about wars and actions… because you're too fucking cowardly to look at yourself in the mirror and see the truth. You're a monster, Elena. You're a fucking monster and I am going to do whatever it takes to see you caged like the animal you are."

I can see her bulging eyes, pulsating lips and hardening jaw.

I can see it in my mind's eye, the one I can't turn off. No matter how hard I try.

"You never complained," she seethes, "You never said no. You were legally a child, yes, but you were a man in all things that mattered. I taught you the discipline that is the cornerstone to your success. I whipped you into shape and now that you're all grown up and inching towards the Forbes rich list, you think you're too fucking good for me. But it doesn't work like that, boy, life doesn't work like that. I have worked hard for everything I have; this unfounded and unsubstantiated bullshit is going to bleed me dry. I will not allow that to happen, I will defend what is mine with everything I have and I have a hell of a lot more up my sleeve than your simple mind can ever contemplate."

My reflection rolls his eyes at me.

Same fucking record.

Over and over again.

"Do you ever sing a new tune, Elena? Or do you spout the same bullshit on a daily basis and hope for a different outcome? Isn't that the definition of insanity? Are all you filthy fucking pedos insane, completely fucked-up in the head? Perhaps you and McCallum can use that as a defense strategy… or, alternatively, you can ply the jury with your trademark pity party. Tell them all about your trials and tribulations as a washed-up tramp, stuck in a loveless marriage, contemplating the misery of your middle-aged plight. There could be a couple of spinsters like you on there, you never know your luck. Some fucking hag might look at you and see a bit of herself in your soulless fucking eyes. Then, after, maybe you can have coffee and discuss your favorite brand of dildos and all the different ways in which you can go fuck yourself."

This time, her silence is absolute.

My reflection winks back at me.

"Little boy," she whispers, with ice imbued in every shattering syllable, "You seem to think you have all the answers, so let me ask you a little question that you may not have been expecting. It's a special kind of question, the kind of one I would only ask of my most prized pupil. Do you remember your final year in The Classroom? When I told you that you were ready to move up a grade, that you were such an outstanding student that you ought to be studying well above your age bracket? You were so excited, I remember how rosy those little cheeks of yours glowed. You were so proud. But you were naïve. You were green, and you were easy to sculpt and mold to my liking. It was almost too easy, but then again, you were and are nowhere near as smart as you think you are."

My reflection pales instinctively.

Whatever this is, it's bad.

It's extremely fucking bad.

"So, my little teacher's pet, it's time for a pop quiz. In The Classroom, there were four walls, as standard. Many pleasurable and punitive objects hung from those walls and many secrets were witnessed by those walls. When you graduated from sub to Dom, you asked me to help you with your first submissive. It was to be a once-off, and then you'd be back on bended knee in front of me where you belonged. It was something you needed to get out of your system, you were nineteen years old. We broke her in together, remember? It was such a special moment. Until, of course, you went too far… you went far too far… and that girl lost her mind in a way I have never seen before. You remember her, baby? The lovely Samantha? The beautiful brunette that you marked with permanence, abused with audacity and reduced to a mentally quivering heap of safeword spouting misery? Do you remember her now? She screamed and screamed until I came running back downstairs, to see you with that look in your eyes and that whip in your hands. I'd only left you alone for forty-three minutes and in that time, you destroyed that girl. Of course, money talks, and I paid for her treatment and her silence and we waved her off as a lesson well learned. No proof, no problem."

Vomit coats my mouth.

Panic sears my heart.

Putrid regret courses through my veins. I think of Samantha every night, I regret it every night.

My reflection stiffens and crumples as one.

No one could know about that, her NDA was absolute, no one would believe Elena…

Hyperventilation is near.

Her sneering smile wriggles into my ear like an STD lost in transit. Her words are alight with malice.

"Except, there is proof, little boy. There's a tape."

TBC