Chapter 13

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Alki Beach is absolutely lovely on a mid-summer Saturday afternoon. There are plenty of people out to enjoy a picture perfect summer day, on the long beach strip that runs from Alki Point to Duwamish Head on Elliott Bay. As soon as I hear that last part, I know why Kate's Elliot chose it. She does too and we both roll our eyes. But honestly it's a great spot for a 2.5 mile walk with joggers, people on rollerblades, volleyball players, beachcombers, sunbathers, bicyclists and strollers out to enjoy the sun. There are picnic tables, a bathhouse housing an art studio, and a restroom at the south end of the beach. We grab some tables and move them onto the beach near a trio of fire pits. Well, I start to grab a table end, trip over my own two feet and go down butt first on the sand. While I'm going down my swinging arm catches a hold of Kate's Valentino beach hand bag, which she has over one shoulder. That pulls her off balance and she windmills to try and stay afloat. One of her hands gets in a good hard hit on Ryan's neck, causing Kate to screech about a possible broken nail as she comes down on top of me. Ryan pulled back automatically and bumped into Elliot who was rounding the table to try and prevent the disaster and I think he stepped on Elliot's foot as well, cause when I got around to looking up poor Elliot was jumping up and down holding his right foot in both hands.

Sawyer tossed Kate up off me and Elliot let go of his foot long enough to catch my BFF – kissing ensues there. Then he carefully set me back on my feet and told me to "Just stand still, Ana. Please." Then he and the other guys all carried the tables down. By the time Kate and I got the food and drink she'd packed up unloaded, people were beginning to arrive. Ethan pulled up in a new Maserati GranCabrio MC that his dad got him … I guess yesterday? I'm not sure, but it's silver and shows off Morgan quite nicely. Maybe these two are going to work out … And soon Allison and Sharlie arrive with more people and our afternoon is off to a great start.

The water temperature ranges from isn't quite 60 degrees Fahrenheit, but most of us have lived in Washington long enough to acclimate, so swim suits are on and water games keep us all warm anyway. I have spent the time since I met Christian being much too solemn. The whole point of buckling down all my life was to get to the point that I would be secure enough in my adult life to actually have fun. So dammit, I am! I have a good paying job, sane and adventurous friends, and my health. So I killed a few otters … it was an accident and if I try really hard I will be able to forget at least on some level about those cute fury faces with the big dark eyes and whiskers that twitch and tickle … I take the beer Elliot hands me and gulp it down.

By sundown we have three wonderful beach fires going and I swear there are at least one hundred people who are claiming us as the hosts. Sawyer had to call in extra security as there are – I am not kidding – over like thirty paparazzi standing around taking pics and vids of us. Well, I guess me. And Elliot and Kate, and Ethan. Elliot has quite a few dollar signs after his name, although I'm not sure if its as many as Kate and Ethan's Dad. But he's rich enough that I guess society pages, trash mags and television shows want to know what he's got going on. That and the dude is hot. Way to go, Kate!

With the darkness I get a chance to sit in front of the water and find out what everyone knows of Elena. It's actually the first time the four of us have had a chance to really talk about the entire war I've declared. All of Christian's body guards are spread between the beach's parking area and down to the water. My last line of defense is Cottie and I swear that she could fight off Arnold Schwarzenegger back in his buff and tuff days. She's ten yards away and the noise of the beach party and the water is enough that the four of us sitting on the sand can't be clearly overheard. So the four of us sit criss-cross applesauce facing together and Kate is too busy drunkenly playing volleyball with lots of other people to notice and be jealous … and we get down to business.

Elena's Point of View (sort of a little flashback)

I am getting ready to head for home. It's Friday and been a fucking long week. Isaac is all well and good, but I've got me a new teenage boy from the local juvie rehab center – Seattle's one do-gooder fucking town – who has an interest in post-modern art. I've got a houseful of post-modern art, so of course once I checked out his dynamic ass, abs and arms, not to mention I could look at that sweet fourteen year old face for hours, I suggest I do some volunteer work "guiding the poor boy toward perhaps a career in the field". That's what I told his probation officer and the house mother of the rehab center. Stupid asses! What he's going to get is an education in how to say 'Yes, Mistress' when I ask if he wants his cock stroked by my velvet soft hand.

So I'm packing up my Scully Leather briefcase when in comes two men in ten thousand dollar suits. I recognize the cut and make, of course, from across the salon floor. So stride out to see what is going on. Trust me, it's not the Health Department; they don't dress like this.

Guy #1 in the blue pin stripe with matching Dolce & Gabbana tie looks me up and down. He's got that she's one hot bitch look in his eyes – thank you very much – as he steps forward. "Mrs. Elena Lincoln?"

I offer him my hand. "It's Mizz," I emphasize. I look expectantly for him to give me his name. He's much too old for me, at least thirty, and the only male I'll even contemplate doing over twenty-five is Christian. Isaac's getting up there and he'll soon be riding a new candy cane once he's aged out for me.

"My name is Paulo Dorian, and this is Maxwell St. John. We're with First Samson Bank."

My bank. Well, one of them. I've triple mortgaged the Esclava chain, all co-signed with Christian. The monies from the first two mortgages are firmly in Swiss and off-shore bank accounts. No one is leaving this woman poor. I'm prepared up and out the ass for a rainy day. "And how can I help you today, Mr. Dorian, Mr. St. John?" If they want some freebies, I can slide them in – or if it's for their girlfriends or wives … or maybe they're both new to the BDSM scene here in Seattle and have been referred to me. From head to toe they are both screaming money, so it could be the latter.

Dorian gets right to the point. He holds out a long yellow envelope to me. "Miz. Lincoln, First Samson Bank is calling your loan due for the Esclava Corporation. The total due is thirty-five million dollars, due in full Monday or we'll need to foreclose the beginning of business on Tuesday."

For a minute I don't hear him. I can't hear him. Here this stupid mother fucker is standing a few yards away from my office, in front of staff and customers who are listening as hard as they can, trying to ruin my life. The unprofessionalism is staggering. The words he is saying are staggering. In fact, I'm staggering. Butler, one of my outrageously gay hairstylists rushes over and helps me back to my office, yelling for someone to get me a iced lemon and java infused water with a shot of gin. It's the current 'in' drink and I bill my exclusive customers who sip the cold concoctions five hundred dollars a crystal flute. Still, they pack a restorative punch and I need it.

Butler helps me into my desk chair and the two men follow along. Dorian places the yellow envelop with what are doubtless the bank papers on my desk and folds his hands together in front of his cock. I was going to offer him Celia to suck on that cock – a little treat reserved for my VIPs – but that plan's gone. Long, long gone. St. John still hasn't said a word and I finally catch a bulge under his suit coat and realize he's hired help – no doubt to protect Paulo Dorian from being hit on when he delivers his bad news to innocent business owners. Like me. After I get down my water, I start asking questions: Why, How, When, Why again, Who, What, Why again, and finally I just take his business card and let him go. He doesn't have the power to change what's happened, he's just a fancied up delivery boy.

I put in a call to the President of the Women's Business Association and find out that the President of First Samson Bank is Louis Goldstein. Banks are so busy overturning each other that I don't pay attention to who owns and who operates which and what. Unless it's someone I'm working with through my private enterprise of training and supplying Submissives, it's not worth my time. But now I have to contact Louis Goldstein and he's already left for the day. His secretary isn't giving out any more information than that and isn't going to contact him to contact me. Some bitches are gold, others have titanium balls. She's the latter. So I take the appointment at 10am on Monday. Then I call Christian.

~~XOXO~~

I leaned back, hands in the sand, eyes on the water as the last of the sun dipped into the water. It had been a success. Even if Christian bailed out the Troll Bitch, she'd managed a very good kick. It didn't begin to even out the mental, very painful and shatteringly agonizing, picture I have of myself blindfolded, tied up in multiple ways, peeing myself, on Christian, and on that giant bed. Bad enough his juices and every woman – had there ever been men for little orgy parties as well? – he'd ever had on there had left their stains, but I had left a permanent mark. Had the smell of urine left the room? Or had he needed to have a professional cleaning service come in? Gail Jones probably hated me for that mess. Hating and disgusted.

Who wouldn't be?

"Ana?" Sharlie waved a hand in front of her eyes. "Ana?"

I pull myself back to the present, nauseous. Controlling it, I look at the Super Friends. Fuck the NDA. Fuck Christian for getting my hopes up for a romantic weekend filled with romance, massages, satin bed sheets, caviar and champagne. And fuck me for holding that baby otter and then seeing it get killed.

Allison charges up the sand and comes back with four icy cold and wet bottles of beer. Cottie takes mine away, examines it briefly, then opens the screw top before handing it back and wanders away. Just far enough that I don't have to worry she's overhearing all. We tap the long necks in a toast and all four of us chug. Then I look around. "Any of you ever been to a BDSM club or got kinky in the sack?" My face is fifty shades of red, but I don't give a shit. They deserve to know why I'm hell bent on fucking over Elena Lincoln.

Now here's a kicker … they all have. Was I the only person on the face of the universe who hadn't known about this shit? Well, maybe some part of me had known about the tie me up games – I do read after all – and the Marquis de Sade wasn't exactly a banned book any more … but my three friends have all been inside actual clubs. Morgan blushingly shares he likes a little kink, but doesn't share more. Allison says she had a boyfriend who ball gagged her and tied her up all the time – she's giggling madly. Sharlie, with her smooth southern accent, says she might have had an experience where she was a buffet for a bunch of people she didn't know – twice! – because sometimes a girl just has to pay the bills.

Well. I'll. Be. Damned.

Here's the difference between me and Paranoid Christian. I'm not worried these people will turn on me and tell some gossip show all they know. And even if they did? I don't think that his business will collapse or he and his family will die of embarrassment. It's sex. Weird sex that can result in an ass so black and blue that you have to get pain medication prescribed, but sex sells, baby! "Christian was beyond pissed about the picture we sold, asked a Domme friend of his how to punish me, and wound up tying me up and making me pee myself." It comes out in a rush.

They stare at me. I make eye contact with each one.

Morgan, the genius Senior Assistant, reaches out and takes my hand. "And Elena Lincoln is the Domme?"

I nod.

Allison takes my other hand. "Are you sure we shouldn't be having an operation for him, too?"

I nod again. Isn't that the point of why I initiated our little Operation Get Bitch Troll? That way the fault in my mind lies with the mastermind, not the actual bully. How sick am I? I still want Christian Grey to be somehow innocent, acceptable. I am so in love with this monster that I will blame everyone else for his actions. I've even been blaming myself for asking him to "show me", when any sane person would know that even if he smacked me with a belt, it had gone way beyond "show me" status and into whatever fucked up sadism he was into.

"Ok, then." Sharlie takes my foot. Shakes. It makes me smile. Then we all finish off our beers. "So you mentioned in one of your notes that they meet for lunch every Thursday. That's our next score. We need to know what they're talking about. That'll give us some idea of what the bitch considers important. And we can plan from there."

They immediately begin to discuss ideas, resources, and practicalities.

We could probably take over the world in a week. Well, they three could.