More painful confessions.
DeeGH: Best way not to be exposed? Stop showing his ass! He's trapped in the lifestyle because he derives pleasure from it. If Ana had liked what he was doing, he would've kept at it because he gets off on inflicting pain. He even thinks his life would be much easier if Ana didn't hate Elena. But common courtesy hasn't left him, since he calls everyone else on the most minor breaches of etiquette. He has many motives to keep himself out of the news. He handled it wrong. Why should Ana have to help him become a better person? Wasn't that his parents' job? Or Flynn's? Besides, she instructed him to get his shit together, and he pursued her again without doing so! By this time, he knew Leila was on the loose. His answer to Leila's threat? Putting Ana in bondage.
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DDHowe: Carla was seduced by a monster. The fact that she allowed it by being a treacherous bint notwithstanding. Carla believed things would get better. Christain might have struck out again, but he's definitely in the right place. If we're expected to show compassion for him because of what happened before he was five years old, then he definitely needs to empathize with Ana, the impressionable, abused teen.
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FSOGFanFictionAddiction (Vvn_Noel): First, thanks for the love. Second, I'm Nichole Stewart on FB. Ana never really discusses Three, so only Carla could've conveyed the breadth and depth of his abuse. This is the mirror and wakeup call Christian needs, however, Rome wasn't built in a day. Ana isn't rebuilding her relationship with Carla. Carla is doing the heavy lifting; Ana just isn't slapping her down anymore. I would truly hope Christian is aiming for a much deeper relationship with Ana than the rather disinterested one she and Carla share consisting of greeting cards and visits every few years.
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Kathy Beckwith (Krooela): Christian is always putting himself first. Carla even calls him out on covering his ass. He could've used Taylor to deal with the fallout, but I think he wanted to hush Leila. Which is why she popped back up in Freed. Had Taylor handled it, she would've been trying to book a ticket to Mars. By this time in canon, Christian was using marital funds to support Ana's assailant. For all we know, he was still footing the medical school bill for his former sub, too.
Inspiration Song(s): Tears For Fears - Mothers Talk
CPoV
"I know what you're thinking. You're not thinking anything I haven't for the last several years. It was only toward the end that I realized he got off on crushing spirits, Ana's will in particular. Because Ana is so strong and bright. It must've been the most excitement he'd had his entire life."
Was Morton a true sadist? Hadn't she asked me that when she saw my playroom?
"If you have willing volunteers,
why am I here?"
"Because I want to do this
with you, very much."
"Oh. You're a sadist?"
"I'm a Dominant."
"What does that mean?"
"It means I want you to willingly
surrender yourself to me,
in all things."
"Why would I do that?"
"To please me. In very simple terms,
I want you to want to please me."
"How do I do that?"
"I have rules, and I want you to comply
with them. They are for your benefit and
for my pleasure. If you follow these rules
to my satisfaction, I shall reward you.
If you don't, I shall punish you,
and you will learn."
"From time to time, life was good. Steve was generous. He'd buy us anything we wanted. Clothing, shoes. I decorated the house twice the entire time we were married and it hadn't even been a year. Ana never asked him for a damn thing. Because by this point she knew just as he giveth he could take away."
I shouldn't have been surprised she stayed, but it shocked me that she insisted on keeping Anastasia with her when she was aware Morton had decided to turn Ana's world to shit.
"How could you stay with him? How could you make Anastasia stay? If you wanted to stay and be his punching bag, why didn't you let Ana go?" I demanded.
My life with the crackwhore guaranteed one certainty: I would never take on a submissive with a child. Watching men plow into my mother from an early age turned me off women with kids. Because children were unwilling hostages to their mothers' misfortunes.
They couldn't consent. They shouldn't have to know their mothers were being punished. Or that their mothers weren't available on weekends because they'd signed a contract.
"Do you still wonder why I took her and kept her? I'm a lot of things, selfish, petty, vain. But the overarching truth was that Anastasia is the only child I could ever have and I loved her. And I wanted Anastasia with me. I told you that Stephen was charming," she argued. "It wasn't like I was being beaten morning, noon, and night. Most of the crap he was pulling on Ana, I found out after the fact. And I stupidly clung to my belief that if she would conform, all would be well. You know the truth. That I was too enthralled and too chickenshit to leave. But it's hard to see that from the inside."
I guess from Carla's perspective that was true. And they were in their honeymoon period. She'd admitted she was selfish. She must not have been able to see how bad things were because she could barely see beyond herself. Besides, I hardly needed more reasons to despise her.
"He wanted to play happy families, but he was the only person happy in that house. I put a good face on it, but Ana wasn't even willing to try. Why would she when she was his resident whipping post and scapegoat for everything? Anything that went wrong in his life was her fault."
How could she expect Anastasia to try to make that fucker happy? It was clear that he was even pissed with compliance. Then again, I imagined Ana capable of knowing when and when not to follow my rules. She claimed that they were arbitrary. Anastasia was a subject-matter expert in capricious, unfair, mercurial behavior. Especially from a man who held absolute power. Being with me must've been a neverending flashback for her. How did she manage to tolerate me for a damn minute? Easily. She laughed at me, mocked me. Found me ridiculous.
At least until the belt. That was her limit. Not the pain. Because she was fully capable of handling that. No. Her limit was discovering that I got off on hurting her. I was her nightmare brought to life. She had been my dreamcatcher, banishing my night terrors. And how did I thank her? By reminding her of the worst period of her life and expecting her to take the plunge right back into it. My punishment-reward system must've been the most absurd thing she had ever heard.
"It's all part of the incentive package.
Both reward and punishment."
"So you'll get your kicks by
exerting your will over me."
"It's about gaining your trust and
your respect, so you'll let me exert
my will over you. I will gain a
great deal of pleasure, joy even,
in your submission. The more you
submit, the greater my joy—
it's a very simple equation."
"Okay, and what do I
get out of this?"
"Me."
What hubris! As if I was nearly good enough to be considered a worthy prize. Not for her. I now realize what the conflict in her face meant. She loved me, but deplored my ways, and she could not remain. She was an angel, and I had used up all of her grace.
"He would pit us against one another, you know. He would punish her and then wait for me to interfere. However, if I intervened, the punishment would be awful for both of us. It was a game to him. He liked watching the schism grow. The reason why he didn't let her eat that night? He said she'd gained two pounds. Two whole pounds. At least that's what the scale said. It lied. Later, when he wasn't around, I weighed something I knew to be exactly five pounds. But the scale registered seven."
He had kept them to create a real-life reenactment of the prisoner's dilemma. At that age, she should have been gaining weight. If Ana had always been thin, two pounds was the difference between slender and dangerously underweight. He had been starving her and stunting her growth for the sheer hell of it.
"He would do a lot of very shady shit before everything hit the fan. Limiting her food intake, often forbidding her meals altogether. Sometimes she would get home from school and the doors would be locked. Steve had instructed the housekeeper not to let her in. He didn't care if she had to stand outside in the rain. She didn't have a key."
What use was the housekeeper if Anastasia was still the chief cook and bottle washer? Seems like she was living a life of semi-retirement on Ana's back. What did she actually do?
"If I wasn't there to open the door, Ana would have to wait for me. Sometimes he would send me on errands just so I would be late. Do you think he would open the door for her? No. He'd be in the family room watching television. Ana knew not to knock or ring the doorbell more than once. So she would just sit down and wait. When he realized his behavior didn't faze her, that he hadn't managed to shake her resolve, everything escalated once again."
"Sometimes when we had dinner he would make her stand outside on the patio looking in. By this time, I was utterly downtrodden; he had beaten whatever fight that I could have manufactured out of me. No matter what, he always won. When Ray would write, he would simply tear the letters up and discard them unopened. Ray was the past. I was certain that money or checks had been in those envelopes, but Steve didn't give a damn. He insisted he could provide for his own daughter. And that's when I knew he had taken the express train to Crazy Town."
That's what it took for Carla to realize her husband was insane?
"I started trying to seek ways to send her back home. I'd seen the light. And stars from Stephen's fists. But then he became curiously paranoid, ensuring I hardly had any money for anything. He started keeping a log of how much I spent, what I spent it on, where I spent it, and when I spent it. And unlike Raymond, he had never given Ana an allowance."
"We were in hell. There's no other way to describe it. But one night, one crazy night, everything converged. He had lost an important client. He was enraged. I remember Ana had made a wonderful dinner, his favorite in fact. Bastard picked up his plate and hurled it at her. I think it infuriated him that the flying dish had missed her when she dodged. I remember she said something about Ray. I'm not sure, but Stephen started screaming. He went positively apeshit."
He screamed at her and yelled, "He's not your father! I'm your father!"
And Ana looked him dead in the fucking eye and said, "You are not my father. Raymond Steele is my father."
"She was standing toe to toe with him. Here she was, this tiny little thing, with him towering over her and still, she would not relent. Then he told her He's not your father. He's nothing to you."
"And she told him in a clear, strong voice, You are the one who's nothing. It takes more than sperm to make a father."
"At that point, he slapped her so hard, she fell to the ground. I remember thinking this is where it all ends. This is where she'll toe the line, because there's no way, absolutely no way anyone could stand up to him. He was just the monstrous giant in our world, but she picked herself up and acted as if nothing had happened. She even retrieved the broken plate in the corner and wiped everything up."
"Of course, after that, he had the nerve to tell her she wouldn't be eating tonight or any other night until she learned the proper respect. She said nothing in return and waited like usual for us to finish eating. She had replaced his broken dish with another. I wouldn't have blamed her if she had spit in it."
"But the next morning when he came to the table expecting breakfast, there was none. He looked in the kitchen and she wasn't there. He accused me of coddling her and letting her oversleep. I went upstairs to her room and everything she considered important was gone. He went into our bedroom and searched for his wallet. He eventually found it in the laundry room. She had taken $200. He didn't understand the significance, but I did."
"She had taken out the allowance she would have made in Montesano for the same amount of time and work. He beat me so badly that day. Then he beat me every day after that. He accused me of helping her. How could I? He monitored us so closely and kept her totally isolated. He was with me practically every minute. He knew my entire schedule backward and forward. He knew where I spent money. Ana didn't have an outside job, she didn't have outside friends, and she had no way to contact Ray. It wasn't my fault he had left his wallet in his pants that he had dropped down the laundry chute. Stephen saw conspiracies everywhere."
I sat there in shock. I couldn't believe how much abuse Ana had suffered. And there I was with a contract promising to heap more upon her. I'm surprised she hadn't beaned me with a heavy object from a height. Then again, when it came to control, Mr. Morton had me beat. Even in my bossiest days, I hadn't been that ridiculous. Then again, no sane woman ever would have signed up for that unless she was a consensual slave.
"He used all of his resources to find her. He assumed she would make a beeline for Ray. And when that didn't pan out he went crazy. Crazier. The first week, he played it off to the school as an illness. He was so sure she would show up tired, hungry, desperate, and finally willing to give him the respect he deserved."
"After that, he told the school that she had gone back home to be with her father. It must have felt like eating so much crow considering, but the last thing he wanted was to be caught up in the midst of a child's disappearance. After that, we went everywhere together because he wanted to make sure that everyone knew that Ana was safe and with her father."
"He was covering his ass and erasing his tracks. I knew he hadn't done anything to her besides the obvious, but he never realized how resilient and resourceful Ana was. How capable Ray had taught her to be; how to stand on her own two feet. I figured she was just waiting us out until her birthday. That way she could find a judge that would sign off and take away custody from me so she could remain in a safe location."
"Because before then the judge just didn't give her too much credit. Besides, there was no biological link between her and Ray and we were divorced. As far as the law of the land was concerned, she only had one parent. It didn't matter that Ray had been that child's father in everything but name since before she could walk and talk."
"What they weren't counting on was the fact that I was completely in Stephen's thrall at first and completely at his mercy at the last. I was in no position to make smart or good decisions for myself, let alone Ana. But I thanked my lucky stars every night she had gotten away. Because he was never going to tame her; he would have had to kill her first."
Morton was a true sadist then. And Ana had been his quarry.
"After the investigators Steve sent questioned Ray, Ray came haring down from Montesano to Texas. Demanding to know where his daughter was, what had led up to the crisis we were now experiencing, and what had made her leave. Then Steve made the colossal mistake of stepping to Ray incorrectly and Ray beat the everloving shit out of him."
"He wanted to know why Annie hadn't called or written him. Or responded to his letters. Meanwhile, I stood quiet and completely subdued, unlike Ray had ever seen me, and he just knew. God he knew. I was sure he had broken Stephen's bones by the time he had finished questioning him."
"He made Stephen regret the day he was born. He probably cursed both the cock and the egg he came from toward the end. Steve threatened to ruin him. Ray promised to end him. Needless to say, Ray's fists and feet prevailed that day, settling their argument."
I was on the edge of my seat. Anastasia had proved capable of outstrategizing all the adults in her life.
"Two weeks after Ana's birthday, she arrived in Montesano much healthier looking than when she left Texas, refusing to speak to me. Ray wouldn't make her. I had quietly signed over my rights before his departure, so there was no way that Steve would ever get his hands on her again. To this day, she hates yelling, screaming, and disputes. She yearns for calm, peace, and tranquility."
"No matter what I did, she wouldn't talk to me. We didn't have a strict mother-daughter relationship; she'd always been the most mature person of the both of us. She gave herself a bedtime. She was so self-assured and self-contained. The only thing I'd taught her was how to be in a fucked up relationship."
"Ray, on the other hand, had taught her how to survive. And she did. She had run away from home, stayed gone for over a month, and returned in better shape than when she left. We never knew where she had gone; she never told us. After any authorities that may have become involved were all notified that she was safe and sound, the records of her disappearance vanished like magic. Wave that magic money wand around enough times and you can make whole people disappear. He had covered his own ass, but in a final act of malice, he left Ana hanging out to dry. He could've given her a better backstory. But that's why she didn't get many scholarships. She had missed an entire month of school."
"It was hard for her to make that up. Especially considering that there were no explanations forthcoming. I'd suggested she say that she had mono or something but she refused to lie. And she wouldn't tell the truth even when it would have saved her the aggravation. Because she's honest. That, and she thought they might send me to jail for allowing the abuse. It was my one-time get-out-of-jail-free card," she admitted sadly.
"Do you know even after all that happened, I stayed with the bastard? It's so hard to remove oneself from a toxic relationship. Gratitude, guilt, nostalgia, and even exhaustion play their parts. I simply couldn't summon the energy to leave. One day while I was out, my doctor's office called to cancel my appointment and I rushed home, sure Stephen would know and punish me if I didn't return immediately. I caught him in our bed fucking the housekeeper. He had probably been fucking her every time he sent me on errands. While Anastasia stood outside waiting for me to open the door."
I felt sick to my soul. I might have misled myself about not staying long enough to require a room. I was stunned. I couldn't believe how Ana, a 15-year-old runaway, managed not to end up as a statistic. How did she live? How did she survive? I certainly couldn't have managed. I was on the verge of death after four fucking days.
And I hadn't overlooked the bit about Ana waiting on the outside while Morton busied himself fucking the help. I'm surprised she bothered to cross the threshold of Escala that night, possibly suspecting that I had fucked Leila in her apartment, perhaps even in her own bed, while I sent her to await me at Escala.
If she could vanish for a month at 15, God only knows how long she could disappear at 21. At least underage, I could have gotten the cops involved. Now, one of her parents would have to file a missing person's report. I certainly couldn't do it because she no longer even worked for me, and I could assume by leaving my apartment in the middle of the night that we were broken up, so I couldn't even claim to be an interested party. Perhaps Kate could, but she seemed to not be leaning in that direction.
"After...that, I hadn't seen her in years. She was damaged, terrified of men, by even the idea of sex. You made her run, but I could tell she... You made her think. You made her feel. And I liked that about you. I thought that that time in Texas had killed the part of her heart and mind that would have ever allowed a man in. So that's why I sent her to your hotel room. And now you tell me she's gone. I don't know what to think about you, Mr. Grey."
I didn't know what to think of myself. All I did know was that Anastasia was gone and I wanted her home. I needed her safe. But knowing all of this, I realized I had an uphill mountain to climb with no guarantee or hope of success. My wants and needs no longer mattered. When Anastasia returned, would she even want me?
"It's clear you completely mangled the apprehension of this woman from beginning to end. You did all this while leaving my daughter clueless and vulnerable. You walked into a situation where your money didn't mean a goddamn thing. Tell me, what would you have done had your deranged whore murdered my daughter in that apartment?" she demanded.
E/N: Nope. No quilt. Not yet. Next chapter. The next full-length story I'll be releasing from the "vault" will be either Watermark or Guardian. If you like angst, drama, timeless romance, and second chances, I think either of these fanfic novels will be for you. If you leave me reviews on FFnet and belong to FB, please drop your handle in your review. If you leave feedback, I may reply in an author's note.
Thank you for reading.
Nichole Stewart FB