A/N - if you get a little confused by who's who, flick back to Chapter 1 where I've added a character list to help you keep track.

R x

CHAPTER 21

Monday

Scott was trying, he really was, but perhaps he was too infected by the poison, now? He slumped into the chair at his desk and switched on his computer. The little clock on the lower right hand side of the screen said 03:57. Another night without sleep. Whenever he tried to push them aside, back came thoughts of Christian Grey, settling like a green miasma on his life. It now extended to whenever he looked at Susannah. She had once been everything to him, feeling secure in what they had together, but every moment that she was in Grey's building now felt as if she might as well be in his bed. Scott couldn't shake the feeling that it was true even though he hadn't a scrap of evidence. However much he tried to convince himself that he was imagining it, there was something… a secret hinted at when he'd found her sat so cozily with the Greys and again, when she'd reached for the extra wine glass, knowing exactly which cupboard to open. But he couldn't nail it down. He'd gone through her emails, her purse, her work documents, her calendar, her stash of little nick-nacks but he couldn't find a single thing to use in accusation against her. A small voice within had suggested it might be because she was innocent, or because she was good friends with Ana Grey. But the small voice was regularly drowned out by the snarling beast of jealousy.

They were barely speaking. Their marriage was not even a month old and he was having difficulty even talking to her about what they were going to cook for dinner. Her submission to him was total in its physical manifestation, but mentally, it was not. He felt that if it were a choice between him and Christian Grey, she would pick him. Given how viciously he'd fucked her tonight, who could blame her? He knew he had to get it under control before the green mist turned a shade of red.

If they were going to play 'pin the tail on the adulterer' then even the worst player would have no trouble locating him. Petra had been there, even before Susannah and Petra really didn't count. He unzipped, he came, he zipped up and he left, paid for a few things she needed and that was all there was to it. She was a collection of orifices, not a relationship. He didn't want one and she knew the score. Sloan, however, didn't. She wanted the touchy feely stuff and sleeping with her had been a giant mistake. He'd gambled on getting a bed for the night and wound up collecting a limpet. She was a lonely single mother who had no idea of what she was getting into or what he was really capable of. He was pretending to be this guy, Eddie, who lived an eclectic life. How long before she discovered that he was married and just the Picture Editor on the Seattle Times. It was a boring job, selecting which crappy shots to use in the paper. Nobody could take a good picture these days. Well, nobody that the paper was willing to use. Scott had a few people that he'd like to approach but money was tight and the rewards for the true artists weren't there.

The true artists were to be found in the Seattle Photography Club and even though he'd left the day-to-day photography behind, he still appreciated the artistry that went into a beautiful shot. He was on the site now, cooling his marital ire with the balm of beauty. He clicked through the new pictures, lingering over a 'woodland nymph' collection taken in the forests of the Olympic Peninsula. Porcelain skin up against rugged bark was a startlingly pleasing combination. Especially the model. She'd been chosen well. Young, with flaxen curls and breasts that disappeared to nothing when she arched supine on the forest floor. He was not attracted to her but photographically, she was breathtaking. True art. He found it easy to clearly define to himself what was and was not pornography, but he understood that those definitions were different for each person. He found skinny young models to be art. Photographs of women who were older and more voluptuous moved closer to the boundary. Add an element of restraint and a photograph was definitely blurring the lines for him. There was nothing in that category in this new batch as he clicked quickly through the voluminous upload from a newbie. The sound of Susannah coughing broke his concentration and when it returned he found himself clicking through a series of cemetery shots when something caught his eye and he smiled. Quilcene had done it again and Scott was mesmerized.

How this person achieved these amazing effects, Scott had no idea. Professionally, he'd always preferred not to re-touch his pictures, but there was something about the detail in these that made Scott think again about the benefits of digital manipulation. One of the deeply frustrating things about the Photography Club's website, was that some of the best artists chose to hide themselves behind user names and pseudonyms. Quilcene was one of them. Scott knew nothing about them other than they uploaded only rarely and when they did, it was quality. The photograph of jewellery set against pale flesh and black fabric had an ethereal starkness about it, with the gray hearts drawing the eye, softening the picture and acting both as a magnet to draw and a talisman to ward off the darkness. "Wow," Scott muttered in disbelief as he reached up to rub his forehead. Passing his hand across his line of sight momentarily broke his connection to the hearts and for a second he saw something else he recognised, although it was gone again when his sight line returned. He brought his hand back slowly, reaching out to the screen and placing a hand across the hearts. Obscuring them enabled him to see the rest of the picture and what it showed him made him catch his breath. He called up a fresh window to email the photographer.

xXXx

In bed, Susannah tossed and turned. The coughing fit had woken her and there was little chance of getting back to sleep. There was little point, either. It was Monday. If she went back to sleep now she'd feel wretched when she woke again and Monday didn't need any extra help to feel worse. Considering how sick she'd been after the fire at the Devil's Kitchen, a few coughing fits were a small price to pay for a life that had been saved. But this was just the beginning. She had lung damage and the doctors had been clear, that with age and any changes in the lung that the smoke had caused, it was likely to get worse. For now though, coughing fits and needing to avoid anyone with a cold was the extent of it. She rolled over into the empty space beside her. Scott wasn't sleeping, either, although it hadn't been coughing that had woken him. She liked to snuggle up to him, his warmth and strong familiar arms would soothe her back to sleep. But that hadn't happened recently. Her affliction had become an irritation and these days, he was far more likely to get up and go sleep in another room, than he was to hold her.

In her head she went over her day, mentally noting those tasks that she needed to get done; including arranging a trip to Brussels to sign off on the working practice changes that affected GEH employees in the European Union. Brussels was not the most engaging place in the world and she wondered if she could squeeze in a detour to Bruges. Getting time alone to walk along the canals and through the streets and squares of that beautiful little city, would be precious. It was one of her favourite places.

Susannah glanced at the clock and a shadow cast itself over the glow of the digital numbers. She turned her head to see Scott silhouetted in the doorway of the bedroom.

"You're awake. Good. Get up." Susannah complied immediately. "Bring your collar and come here."

She picked it up from the bedside table and walked over to him. She was naked and the chill of the room raised goosebumps on her skin. That wasn't the only thing that made her skin react. His voice had been flat and cold. He didn't want her, he wanted to punish her. How had she managed to transgress while sleep? She stood in front of him, hands extended, cupping the collar in her palms and her eyes focused on his feet. He picked it up and walked around her, placing it around her neck and locking it in place. The weight of it settled into position until she got to the office and could be free of it.

As soon as it was in place, he put his hand around her neck at the base of her skull and propelled her forwards, out of the bedroom and down the hall to his study.

"Explain this!" He pushed her in front of his computer screen, voice snarling and a finger jabbing into her back.

Susannah looked. All she could see was a row of gray hearts around the necks of her and her friends. It seemed to be the only thing in the picture and when she tried to see the picture as a whole, she found that she couldn't. It was as if she was being prevented from seeing something by a clever visual cloaking device. Then she realised what the issue was, why he was so angry with her. Her collar had been edited out of the picture.

"I was wearing it." She spoke with the assurance of truth. Probably to 'clean' the image up the young man had removed it to highlight the simple nature of the pendants, unaware of the arrangement that it marked and the impact it would likely have on her behind.

"I'm establishing that, by asking for the original," he said. "You'd better pray that you're telling the truth."

"I promise you, I am."

There was silence for a moment. "And I suppose you think that's it?" She knew better than to reply. "What the fuck are these?" he tapped the screen.

"Pendants."

"I can see that. Why?"

"Because we liked them. We all purchased one each."

"And why would you do that?"

"To illustrate our friendship." It was not a lie, but it was not the whole truth, either.

"A piece of rock illustrates a friendship? Well, I suppose it might," he conceded. "Still, I am making two new rules for you. Three, in fact. Look at me." His wife turned to him and looked into his eyes. "I will never meet up with these women, again. Repeat."

Susannah did.

"I will not wear any adornment around my neck other than those deemed suitable by my husband. Repeat."

She complied and also repeated the third statement, that she would wear the collar twenty-four hours a day. It would no longer be removed at night. That was punishment indeed given the weight of it.

"And you will give me that pendant, now." Susannah went to her closet and retrieved it from the inside pocket of a jacket, safely wrapped in a white handkerchief. She returned and placed it in her husband's hand.

"I'm sorry, my love," she said. "I trust and respect your decisions for the strength of our marriage."

Scott gave a derisive huff. "The strength of our marriage? I didn't know about your Secret Sisterhood of the Freaky Similarities. What other secrets are you keeping from me?"

"None," she said, holding fast to the missing name from her list of previous Dominants. He started at her, willing secrets out of her eyeballs. "And don't think I haven't finished with you." There was a 'ping' from his computer and Scott checked who it was. "Go and get dressed," he snapped. "By the time you return, I'll know whether you're telling the truth."

Susannah made her way to the bathroom knowing that she'd escaped lightly. The soreness between her legs from last night told her how much worse it could be. These days, he wasn't the virile specimen he thought he was. He occasionally passed on sex, framing it as choice when really it was down to him not being at the peak of fitness, anymore. She never alluded to it though. Last night amply demonstrated that when he wanted to, he could really hurt her.

As for her confiscated pendant, she smiled. She would wear her gray heart on the inside from now on.

xXXx

Scott opened the email and the attachment that confirmed his wife's truthfulness. Unretouched, he could look at the photograph in its entirety. Immaculate, erect and each woman possessing a quality that he recognised, he worked out the link between them. It was staring him in the face. They were submissives. He'd been around subs long enough to know what to look for. He turned to the message that Quilcene had written with it. Scott had asked what the photographer knew about the women. Nothing, he said, apart from the woman who'd joined them later in the restaurant.

Scott was astonished. "Anastasia Grey?" He said out loud. What had she got to do with it? Scott knew that despite his long previous association with the Devil's Kitchen, Christian Grey was no longer part of the scene. Happily married with children, it would seem. His wife had become one of Seattle's most notable business people, managing to carve out a reputation away from her husband's shadow. She was a strong woman, perhaps her strength extended to other areas? Perhaps she was the Dominant, now? Another thought came to mind. What if… given Susannah and Anastasia's close friendship, perhaps the reason for it was a secret sapphic side to Mrs Grey? In which case Susannah's distance may be explained because she too held those desires. He would never be able to have all of her if that was the case. Did she have desires that she wanted to explore with these women and with Anastasia Grey in control of it? He was aware he was speculating but there was one clear way to find out.

He was taking his wife to the office this morning.