A/N: Christian meets Anastasia Steele in a very unique fashion. CG and Ana meet as pen-pals...and a friendship is born. I'm sorry this update took forever. It's had many versions before I said, forget it. It's as done as it's going to get. CG's voice was overwhelming me, and Ana's letter does a lot of speaking for her. ***The "Underage" warning is because Ana is 14 years old when the story begins. There is no sex between Christian and a minor in this story, though they discuss mature themes.***
CPoV
I could barely sleep at all following BabyMamaGate. The bitch didn't even attempt to offer up a token apology, not that I would have accepted one. Suffering a serious bout of cockblock-induced migraine, I'm tempted to have Priscilla's car repossessed, until I remember the car is in her name. I could always have it misplaced and repeatedly ticketed until the police impound it. Her only excuse for trying to trap me was love.
Love, that which has given excuse for every bad thing that has happened to me in my life. My sperm donor loved me so much, that he was nowhere to found after I was born whereas the crackwhore loved me too much to just let me go. Instead, she kept our little family together by whoring herself out to barely provide food and a roof and shooting up to escape from our sorry reality in between.
Normal people wouldn't know what happens to a body after four days without proper ventilation or visualize how the filthy skin of a hardened drug addict looked as gases began to build up within the tissues. And the smell. At four years old, I could remember it all. I thought Ella was sleeping, and I tried to wake her. Then I would go away and her body would move again, so I thought she was waking up. This seemed to go on all day.
The true horror, that Grace and Carrick never discussed, was the fact that Ella was pregnant again when she perished. Neither she nor the baby survived, because I saw the baby come out of her like some dead alien thing. It had been expelled from her body post-mortem. Earlier psychologists accused me of making up a sibling until I no longer attempted to discuss it in therapy. I never bothered to discuss this revelation with Dr. Rosen. I was fucked up enough without the addition of hazy memories of witnessing a homebirth with Ella dead on the floor.
But when Grace put Mia in my arms, I just knew my baby had come back to me and I had to keep her safe. She was my first word in the strange world Grace had taken me to. Mia only responded to me with her smiles at first, though later she began to share them with the rest of the world. She was the first person I'd ever considered mine. Ella was certainly never mine. I belonged to Grace and Carrick while belonging nowhere. Their touch burned me, and it felt like my skin was being peeled off one strip at a time.
Elena has attempted to send me one file after the next of subs that would meet my exacting requirements, but she sent Priscilla so obviously, her judgement is flawed. If Elena thought love was for fools, why was she matching me with so many fucking idiots? Maybe next time she'll seen a sub that's been fixed like one of the dogs you see on those late-night commercials with Sarah McLachlan or like the guy on the Price is Right who reminds everybody to have their pets spayed or neutered. Fuck, I should really look into that. Not the snip, fuck that noise, but subs that can't have children.
Maybe she could find me a medical-board certified non-breeding sub in her late 20s or early 30s. Surely a few petite brunettes are sterilized? I've been scarred by this experience. At a fifty thou a head, you'd think she would've been able to weed out the duds. I might have a talented cock, but it's not a fucking divining rod for lunatics. I may use my skills to drive them crazy, but I don't expect them to stay that way. If Elena can't deliver some quality strange soon, I'll need to make some better friends in the community. Either way, the next contract will give me the power to make all medical decisions. If these chicks are going to act like dogs in heat, I'll treat them like the bitches they are.
I'm nowhere near the cruelest Dom around. I'm not into public humiliation, unsanitary or dangerous shit like bloodplay or scat. I just don't see my submissives as women who I want to spend the rest of my life with. Or be seen in public with. At the heart of it BDSM is all about exploring one's limits and kink in a responsible way. Falling in love isn't my thing and I make it known upfront that love's a hard limit. I have a lot to bring to the table. I'm attractive, generous and skilled. Unfortunately, I'm also a public figure, so that means I require a great deal of discretion.
I should probably go for a run; some form of physical activity would do me some good. As I put on my sweats and trainers, my cell rings with my mother's tone and I just know I couldn't leave soon enough. Chucking the phone toward my dresser, I meet up with Taylor in the foyer. Fucker's psychic.
"Gimme a number," he grunts. He usually attempts to determine what level of fucked up day I'm having by how many miles we run at a time. So far, his method has yet to fail.
"Let's start with fifteen," I respond. My usual is ten, but since there's no pussy to be had, I better run 'til I'm done. I need to hit the wall. It's the closest to subspace I can get. This work week is going to be brutal.
The morning, crisp and quiet, is peppered with the sounds of our trainers hitting the pavement. We're traversing one of Taylor's nine random routes from Escala. We have other routes from other start points, but this bit of subterfuge would throw off the average abduction attempt. Taylor doesn't realize that I know he has another team or two that follows us everywhere we go. Watchers for the watchers.
There's barely a hint of the sun, yet no longer pitch. It's Saturday and yet the noises of daily life have begun to intrude. Cars and trucks making pickups and deliveries. Few pitiful bastards making their way to work. Seattle music. Coffee shops opening their doors. Ah, there's the rain right on schedule. My hood becomes saturated, rivulets of water running down my face. Clothes plastered to my body. I run harder, followed by Taylor who seems to be game for everything.
Finally able to filter out foreign sounds, I feel my heart racing and can almost hear my pulse. Lub-dub. Lub-dub. Lub-dub. Blood swooshing in my veins. I build up to a sprint with Taylor trailing in my wake. I don't pretend I can actually outrun him; he just can't afford to leave me in the dust while keeping me safe. Out feet beat a staccato beat on the wet pavement, puddles splashing in our wake. Our clothes and shoes are fucked. Bet Taylor is grateful for his generous clothes allowance now. After the first five miles, we go somewhat off the beaten path, hitting the park and side streets.
These runs give me the opportunity to see the world I've never felt a part of. More businesses and storefronts open, people ready to hawk their wares. Everywhere are signs of people selling something. But I'm not buying. I continue running, everything is white noise. Looking both ways, I cross the street, working my way deeper to a more residential area. It's much quieter as we complete our second set of five miles.
Doubling back to complete our circuit, I get a second wind and sprint once more. I can almost forget Grace's plaintive message that awaits me. Will I feel guilty, or put upon, enough to show my face this Sunday for dinner? I have a feeling it's never going to get better because my family, especially Grace, wants something I cannot give them. They desire family intimacy that's never existed between us. Regularly showing up and breaking bread together does not a family make.
Besides, we're not supposed to discuss work at the dinner table and since work makes up the greater part of my life, I have very little to bring to the table. Ironically, Grace spends the better part of our get-togethers talking about the hospital or her various charitable obligations, as if they're not work-related. Whenever I attend one of the weekly dinners, conversation usually always comes down to two things: whether I'm seeing anyone or if I'm coming to their next engagement.
And there's always another engagement. It's as if they'll die if they don't always have something to do. I wonder, deep inside, if Carrick and Grace would still be together if they didn't have a parade of people constantly traipsing through their property for some occasion or other. Personally, I couldn't stand it which is why I chose Escala as my first place after GEH began to really take off. It's just inaccessible enough to keep unwanted visitors out. I change the codes and instant, glorious seclusion is at my fingertips.
Every time I cross my parents' threshold, I promise myself it will be the last. I always feel worse leaving than when I came, somewhat like almost every therapist I ever had. I often wonder why I subject myself to this shit. Each time I see Grace's number pop up on my phone, I whip out the trusty checkbook and mentally ask myself how many zeros it will take to shut her up. I get it, people need help. I know, I was once one of them, but apparently, Grace won't be satisfied until she saves them all with my money. I've personally financed two wings of her failing hospital, and provided almost half of the funding for Coping Together. All this proves is that they wouldn't be able to cope at all without me. On top of that she still wants yet another pound of flesh, shopping me around like fucking one of these debubitches is the solution to all of my problems. It's a fucking shame that my only reprieve from my family consists of an eighty-hour workweek and weekend pussy, peppered with lunches or dinners with Elena.
I run harder, attempting to leave my thoughts far behind, yet they pursue me with vicious zeal, mocking me. I feel betrayed, and no-one betrays me with impunity. Between Elliot using me as his wingman and Mia gallivanting around town on my credit, I feel used up. It's all take, take, take and none of them are giving me anything in return except for this mythical love they swear by. I honestly don't know why I've allowed myself to be forced into a corner, trying to please everyone when they won't even let me breathe. Where was all this emphasis on togetherness when I was a teenager? Now that I'm a grown man, it's too late to mold me into the person they want me to be. They lost my respect a long time ago and are just coasting on the dregs of my gratitude to them for taking me in. But really, how long am I expected to pay for less than a couple decades of room, board and tuition? This bit of musing tempts me to call up my accountant. Perhaps he can bottom-line a nice, round figure so I can detach myself from them permanently once and for all.
My parents, Elliot and Mia have all but publicly labelled me as homosexual despite not knowing how I spend my time. It doesn't seem to matter to them that even I have a right to a private life. Or that they can't trot me out to do the rounds while bragging on the successful endeavors that they refused to support and at one point attempted to undermine. Carrick never figured out that I was tipped off to a couple of his plots to sink two of my major acquisitions before they got off the ground. He was lucky he wasn't my attorney-of-record at the time. While I never retaliated against him directly, it solidified my determination to surround myself with my own legal team. What's outrageous is that he wanted me to fail just so he could send me back to Harvard.
My parents put on a very good show of being liberal but they're really as waspy as you can get and still be Roman Catholic. They aspired to be the Kennedys of the West Coast, and they were grooming us to be Jack and Bobby. Oh, there was much weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth when Elliot used his degree in architecture from Stanford to start his own construction company. It was so 'blue collar' they couldn't stand it. Then Elliot started getting awards in green design and construction and they acted like it was their fucking plan all along. It was ridiculous.
My parents fell victim to a deep belief in meritocracy, believing the best deserve the best and are inherently destined to succeed. The problem with such utopian beliefs is that they set goals that are almost impossible to reach, and they forced all of their pretentious shit down all of our throats like castor oil. Carrick's draconian methods to guarantee compliance made it so much harder to live with them, that time spent with Elena was comforting. Elena always said they'd send me away if they ever found out about us and I believed her based on how quickly they laid down the law when we transgressed.
Both Elliot and Mia were the ones possessing excellent pedigrees. They both had blue blood running through their veins, but I was the reject, the mutt, the one thing that was never like the others. I still think Grace adopted me because I looked the part. She was a doctor; I suppose she could see below the superficial bruising and scarring to see the underlying structure. I was a poor, abused orphan that happened to be blessed with attractive coloring and beautiful bone structure. If you look at us, you'll see they got the pick of the litter. You have Elliot, with his Nordic, blond surfer look. Me, copper-haired, with grey piercing eyes; clearly of Scots-Irish extraction. Finally, Mia, their raven-haired porcelain doll. And I loved her very, very much until she hit puberty and decided to become like the rest of the Stepfords. Now she's grating and grasping. If my parents don't take her in hand, I don't know what will become of her. She's bought into that shit wholesale and has become like Paris Hilton overnight without the billions. I felt as if Mia betrayed me, too. Now, she comes around me sticking her hand out. Do I look like an ATM? The brat had the nerve to ask me for a credit card. In a moment of weakness, I considered it, but shouldn't that be our parents' job?
I figured out pretty quick that I had to be the Ginger Rogers of the family. How? Ginger Rogers was better than because she had to do everything Fred Astaire did backwards while wearing high heels. In my case, Grace's mantra of musical instrument became flawless piano, foreign language mutated into French, Spanish and Italian, and martial arts consisted of karate later evolved into kickboxing. Acquiring all of the skills made me a perfect weapon, in or out of the boardroom, yet three minutes at the dinner table with my family and all I can think about is the next bite.
Fuck! I came out here to relax yet clearing my mind has exposed all the flaws of my nearest and dearest, and Elena is still topping the list. I thought she was fine with the end of our sexual relationship, but apparently she isn't because the last three subs were extraordinary failures. The first sub she sent had an obvious dye job which she knows I despise. She even had a nose job. I'm not fond of corrective surgery, which is one of the major reasons I ended the relationship with Elena in the first place. She was becoming so plastic, I was basically fucking a blow-up doll with crow's feet. Later, after we had separated, I saw a vaginoplasty brochure and I knew I had dodged a bullet. How a woman who had never birthed a child could need that shit boggled the mind. What kind of horse cock was she taking that she needed corrective snatch surgery? Was she trying to hint that I had knocked the bottom out?
The second sub she sent needed to be retrained. She thought we were going to re-enact Pretty Woman, but got mad when I offered to return her to her street corner. Plus, she couldn't cook or suck a cock worth shit and she frowned when she swallowed. The major problem the subs had was that they wanted to be girlfriends and just could not comprehend that I wanted them for things that most girlfriends refuse to do without a ring. I am a very rich man and not hard at all on the eyes. Did they think I couldn't get a girlfriend if I wanted one? I'd probably crash a dating website if I uploaded my real profile and said I was looking for action.
So, no, it's official; my personal life is shit. I stopped running suddenly, my heart racing, I tilted my head skywards, perspiration and water soaked, drained. Is this all there is?
Taylor, catches up to me, halting at my side. "Are you alright, Sir?"
"Of course not, but I've never let it stop me before, have I?" I grimaced. "How many?"
"Almost 20, sir," Taylor reported.
Fuck! Things are worse than I thought. I've never needed a vacation like I need one now. And my problems go far deeper than the lack of a sub. If anything, their absence has just allowed the cracks to show. And I don't like anything broken. Dr. Harris isn't paying his keep. I heard of this new therapist who focuses on goals or some shit instead of deeply examining your past. Flint? I'll have to look into that. What would that make it? Twelve therapists? Let's hope I don't get to thirteen. I need all the luck I can get.
"Can you make it home?" Taylor asked.
We had to be almost three miles out. I needed to at least take a breather. We were just on the other side of the park. After walking it off to prevent stiffness later on, I managed to get to a boulder to sit on when my eyes fell upon some shiny blue object to my left. It almost appeared to glimmer in the dim Seattle light. It was rectangular, which meant it wasn't natural, so what it was doing in the park was a mystery.
Looking closer I realize it's a box, covered in smooth glass. I was reaching for it before I could help myself, when Taylor grabbed my forearm to stop me. "Sir! We don't know what that is. It could be an explosive or something!"
"So you think that someone left a bomb in the park?"
"No clue. Hate to find out and have to call you Mr. Hook for the rest of your life," he replied drily.
But even as I backed away, a missile barreled into me from the right, slamming my body directly into the path of the box, causing it to crack open. There was crying and snuffling coming from somewhere on top of me, where a small weight rested. A woman's voice shouting, "Tanner! Where are you?! I told him not to leave my side. Dammit!"
The little body reared up in shock. I was in shock, too. I had just been attacked by a midget linebacker. The woman walked onto the path and the little boy pops up with a grin, saying, "I'm sorry, Mommy. I saw a rainbow and I wanted to chase it."
Come to think of it, the box was throwing of a glimmer that could have been mistaken for a rainbow from a distance with its prismatic effect.
"Say you're sorry, Tanner. You knocked over this poor man…" she says, getting a look at me and gawking. What is it about me that has women primping and propping up their breasts at the least provocation? This one is blatantly ogling me in front of her child. It's only a face, you disgraceful cow. Is there a Mr. Tanner around?
"It's no problem. Keep a closer eye on your boy, though. Play your cards right and he'll be playing for the Seahawks," I said with a tight smile pasted on my face. Since the box didn't explode and kill us all, I felt it was relatively safe to pick it up and take it home. Something told me it was mine.
We walked away from the neglectful woman and her wayward child. I hope I don't see the little rugrat on a milk carton someday. My legs and arms burned, and I knew I wasn't going to make it. No sooner had that thought crossed my mind when a familiar black SUV arrived. Have to remember to give Taylor a raise. Someone had helpfully lined the seats so we didn't saturate them too badly.
My eyes found the box again; it was surprisingly dry considering our usual wet climate. I guess it was somewhat sheltered within the copse of trees. It had beautiful craftsmanship and only the catch had been broken in our fall, causing the box to open in the first place. I opened it, and saw the word Anastasia burned into the lid in calligraphy. The box was really not much bigger than letter-size, which is all it seemed to contained. A rather thick white envelope wrapped in plastic. The box and its contents reminded me of a time capsule. I closed the lid and resolved to open the letter and discover whatever secrets it held. It surprised me that this was the most excited I'd felt in years.
Later, warm and dry, with a glass of wine in hand, I opened the box again, carefully unwrapping the letter mummified in plastic wrap. The handwriting was painstakingly neat, making me wonder if this was one of many drafts. There was a name and address in the sender field:
Anastasia Rose Steele
13 Honeysuckle Lane
Montesano, Washington 98563
The recipient field just read: A Perfect Stranger.
Opening the envelope carefully, trying to preserve it as much as possible, I pulled out the thick, multi-page letter enclosed.
Friday, March 12, 2004
To Whom It May Concern (doesn't that sound pretentious?):
My name is Anastasia (please call me Annie) Rose Lambert-Steele (yes, I'm hyphenated; no, it's not my fault), and I have to write this letter for a summer project combining communication and social studies. Students that will be sophomores next year have been instructed to write a letter to a perfect stranger as part of a Random Act of Socialization. It's similar to a Random Act of Kindness project, but instead of giving a homeless person the coat off your back or working at a soup kitchen for Thanksgiving, students are required to give of themselves by baring their souls to strangers. What's 'perfect' about a stranger, I ask you? All my life I've been taught about 'stranger danger' or told NOT to talk to strangers; now, all of a sudden they tell us to put ourselves 'out there'. What if I don't want to play hokey-pokey with my safety? What if I like to be by myself? I don't feel lonely at all. Maybe I was lonely at first, but time and necessity have shaped me into a person that can stand to be alone with herself. And I like it this way.
Quite a few of my peers have taken the patriotic route, enclosing their letters in care packages for soldiers who are deployed. I sent a care package overseas once, but my mother Carla ate all of the non-perishable snacks I had included and replaced them with some chocolate bars she bought at Wal-Mart, not realizing that the heat would melt them into sludge. I found out when the soldier wrote back, telling me that candy – which I hadn't sent – had melted, covering everything in the box except a few decks of cards and magazines that were luckily placed in Ziploc bags, though he thanked me anyway. When I asked Carla about it, she laughed it off and said she was hungry. That was so humiliating.
Some other students decided to write to prisoners because that's such a good idea. I guess everybody needs friends but I can't imagine much good coming out of that. What if they end up writing their letters to rapists, murderers or pedophiles? I think the chance of their letters reaching wrongly convicted prisoners is lower than they imagine. Would the warden be able to prevent that? I'm trying to think of anyone in prison that I'd want to have my address but I'm coming up empty. I guess the teachers who assigned this project have never really looked at the faces on the backs of milk cartons.
Ray insisted that I write this letter, even though this assignment will be graded on the honor system, I won't even be attending Montesano High this year, Carla and I are moving to Texas soon and will probably be long gone before this letter reaches you. He tried to say something really profound about why I should finish what I start, but since he and Carla just filed for a no-fault divorce, it's very hard for me to understand. Carla is my mom and Ray is my dad, well stepdad, but since he's the only father I've ever known, he should count, right?
This is the part where I am supposed to tell you about myself. First, I am fourteen years old, so I don't have much life experience to share, but I'll be fifteen in September if that helps. I live in Montesano, though I doubt you've ever heard of it because it is so small. We have a population of less than 4,000 people! The town practically threw a parade when we got a Wal-Mart because there was only a general store and a few strip malls before. I decided to leave my letter up to Fate (in big letters) because that's how I live my life anyway.
My favorite music is classical, but I love the Eagles, the Pretenders, Prince, Jamiroquai and John Mayer. Don't judge me or I'll judge you right back with extreme prejudice!
My biological father died the day I was born in a freak accident during a military exercise. Talk about bad omens. Ray told me that grief at losing my father is what made my mom go 'round the twist but he's always made excuses for her. She's really not a nice person, unless you're a man.
As a kid, I don't get to make any really important choices because whatever the adults say goes. Carla cheated on Ray. I don't approve, but since I'm a child, my opinion doesn't count. I just think if you get married and say vows in front of God and everybody, you should stick to them. It's a contract, right? It would be like welshing on a bet. Less than a month ago, I got sick at school and they had to call Ray at work to take me home because Carla didn't pick up the phone. Ray and I caught her with Stephen Morton with his pants around his ankles, humping on the living room couch. Carla just shrugged her shoulders, got dressed and told Ray she was leaving him and taking me with her. See? No choices. Except one. I haven't sat on the couch since that day even though Ray had it cleaned. Ew.
It occurred to me at that moment that people simply don't respect each other or themselves anymore. I might be a kid, but even I know cheating is wrong. But doing it in your husband's house when the guy you're cheating on him with has his own place is just darn disrespectful! Mr. Morton is single (divorced) and lives in an apartment near the general store where he works as a manager. So he didn't have to have sex with Carla on our couch. I wonder if she just wanted to humiliate and disrespect us even more than she does already.
Ray calls Carla a whimsical person. Whimsy used to sound like a beautiful word, reminding me of grass bending in the wind, leaves swirling in the fall, or sugarplum fairies, but since I've been on the receiving end of her whims all of my life, it's no longer nearly as pretty. I know this letter sounds sad, but I am supposed to put things into this letter that I could never say out loud to anyone I know. Some days I feel like the oldest person in the world. I take pretty good care of myself and I'm thinking of finding some odd jobs I can do to save for college. I can cook, clean and do small household repairs. It'll give me something to do in Texas.
I really hope that a grown-up finds this letter because if you're an adult, you can tell me if life ever gets better. Do things change when you're old enough to drink and vote? Do people trust you or respect you more? Do you feel less helpless and invisible or does this state of affairs last forever? Even though I'm young, I can handle the truth. I've found over time that everybody lies and I'd like to meet at least one honest person this year. Consider it part of my teenage bucket list.
Another good item to check off this year would be finding a best friend. I have a lot of people who call themselves my friends, but none of them really know the first real thing about me. They don't know how I like my tea (I'm a tea drinker by the way) or why I like it with the bag out. Can you guess? They don't know my favorite color is gray because it's usually the color of the sky in the place that I've always felt the safest. Or that there are so many shades of it, reminding me that life's not always black and white. They might know how clumsy I am because everybody knows that, but they don't know it's because my mind is usually somewhere else. It's kinda hard to walk straight in Montesano when your mind is far away in Pemberley or Northanger Abbey.
The last thing I'm supposed to talk about is my dreams, but I've never really had many dreams for myself. I like to read old books and write in my journal, so maybe I'll be an author someday. I really just want my life to mean something more than being just another mouth to feed or a body to push around. I mostly dream of a world where no-one goes hungry, homeless or unloved. Is that too much to ask for?
I really hope you respond because this letter has reached you from cloudy Montesano, by way of Glass Beach in Port Townsend where I collected the sea glass that decorates this box, which I made with my own hands.
So, I guess this is it. I've done my part and taken a leap of faith to reach out to you. Tag, you're it!
Yours Truly,
Annie.
P.S. Here's my e-mail address if snail mail is not for you: callmeannieo at hotmaildotcom
Fuck me! A kid wrote this? Are kids everywhere getting emotionally fucked over? I thought it was just me, but this girl seems pretty fucking normal and put-together and even she's being fucked over. If it could happen to someone like her, somebody like me never had a chance.
I wonder if she used this project as a cry for help. Could I just seal the letter and hope some other fucker finds it? Could I take the chance that I would be giving a child molester or serial killer this poor kid's address? I feel like I know everything about her just from reading this letter. She's smart, she's funny and she seems to have a good head on her shoulders even though she's been landed with a dickless wonder for a father and a whore of a mother. Now her mother wants to move them to Texas? All types of red flags and warning signals are going off in my head. Obviously, this bitch is too fucking dickmatized to notice that this guy with few ties to the community is anxious to take Carla and her teenage daughter to a state over two thousand miles away, too fucking far away, from what seems to be her only decent parent.
This isn't the kind of thing I can report. How would I explain how I know all this information? What if it's all a hoax? What if I'm too late? Fuck, Fuck. Fuck! I knew this was going to be a bad fucking week! It's already July! How long was that fucking box sitting in a Seattle park? And why did I immediately think that this stranger is trying to get into Anastasia's panties? He's fucking her mother. Yet, a louder, more insistent voice is telling me that he might like 'em young, too. He obviously had no compunction against fucking Carla in her husband's home, so why would they need to leave so quickly? In Washington, a no-fault divorce only takes ninety days. Annie wrote this letter in March, and even if it took a month to file the paperwork, her parents' marriage could have been dissolved as soon as June even if they were dragging their feet, freeing up Morton to do fuck all!
I've never had a feeling like this before; I know something is wrong, but I'd be damned if I could explain this premonition to anybody. It's like an army is marching over my grave. Suddenly, this letter is the most important thing in my life. It's the only lifeline connecting me to something inexplicably, yet undeniably compelling.
Picking up my phone to speed-dial Welch, I look at the letter again, noting important data to relate for a thorough background check of all involved parties. "Mr. Grey," a disembodied voice answers.
"Welch, drop everything you are doing. I need several deep background checks done yesterday. I'll need files on several people ASAP. Ray Steele, Carla Steele and Anastasia Rose Lambert-Steele," I said, reeling off the Annie's home address from the envelope. "And I want a very deep check on a Mr. Morton who works or worked as a manager at the Montesano general store. I want to know what his father ate before squirting him into his mother."
"Sir!" he says smartly, hanging up, ostensibly to do my bidding. I knock back the glass of wine in one gulp. Fuck the bouquet, I think to myself, looking around for something stronger.
Fuck, I was drunk. Thank goodness, it's still Saturday. The phone rang. It was Elena, likely calling to apologize again, but for some reason I felt leery of answering the phone, letting it go to voicemail.
"Taylor!" I shouted out. Taylor quickly appeared at the doorway of my office. Change all the codes right away," I directed.
"Sir. What about Mrs. Lincoln's code?" he asked. He was aware that while I regularly changed the elevator codes, I usually left hers intact, but he still shouldn't have questioned me.
"ALL..OF..THE..CODES. IMMEDIATELY!" I shouted. I wouldn't put it past her not to just fucking show up to Escala since I didn't answer her call. "In fact, after you do that, lock down the elevator and tell the desk clerk that I'm out of town on business."
There, that'll keep her from running to Grace, inquiring about my whereabouts. I'm dodging her like I owe her money. Fuck this shit, I'm a grown man and she's running my fucking life like she's done since I was fifteen fucking years old. Fuck, Annie is fourteen! I'm going mad. I know it.
I call Andrea. It's Saturday, but she's on call 24/7/365. It's written into her contract, though I rarely enact the availability clause.
"Mr. Grey," she states flatly.
"Andrea, put Elena Lincoln on my proscribed list; she doesn't get an appointment, her calls are not to be passed through to me and she's not to step foot in GEH at all. Consider her persona non grata for the foreseeable future. If my mother calls me within an hour after any of Mrs. Lincoln's attempts to contact me, divert her calls to voicemail, too. Included in this are any calls from Esclava. Keep a separate log of all of their calls. Do you understand?"
"Yessir," she replied as if I'd just given her jewelry from Tiffany. She was very chipper all of a sudden. Do Elena and Grace get on Andrea's nerves as much they do mine?
"Is there anything pressing on my calendar this month?" I ask.
"No, not really. Just a lot of R&D. Ms. Bailey is out of town on business and you're not expected to travel until next month. You're supposed to be viewing some factories in Texas, I believe."
Texas again.
"Thank you, Andrea. That will be all," I said, disconnecting the call.
Four Days Later:
Welch has dragged his ass long enough. Every time I call for a sitrep, he tells me that he's being thorough. Fucker! Today, he saunters in to my office as if I hadn't been lighting a fire under his ass for almost a week.
"Sir."
"What do you have for me?"
"A lot. I ended up sending a small team of investigators to Montesano to get all the information you requested. The first person we attempted to investigate was Raymond Steele. He had an almost impossibly high military clearance, though he's paid out. The key to his file was surprisingly his ex-wife, the now Carla Morton, nee Wilkins (formerly Lambert and Steele). She remarried almost as soon as the ink on her divorce from Steele dried. A few minutes earlier and she would've been a bigamist."
"She wanted to get remarried awfully fast. What was her hurry?"
"Morton wanted to pursue a great job opportunity and he wanted to take his wife and child with him."
What the utter fuck? He was a manager at a fucking general store. What kind of lucrative talents could he have possessed that would require him to relocate. Pretty sure there a plenty of Texans that can work a register and stock shelves. It's not exactly H-1B visa work.
"He only has a high school diploma, though he's thirty-two years old. He was just the part-time assistant manager of the general store where he was employed. The owner said that he was on the way out. He kept showing up late or just taking extra-long breaks in the middle of his shifts. He also has a history of dating women with daughters between the ages of twelve and sixteen. Eight, thus far. He's moved around quite a bit, and there's never been a complaint filed, but it's suspicious nonetheless."
My hands clench in my lap. There were no complaints filed about any of the shit that happened to me when I was with Ella until someone called the department of public health due to the odor of her decaying body emanating from our apartment. Child abuse reports are shit.
"So what did you discover about Raymond Steele?"
"He is a highly-decorated Marine with over twenty years; he got out after an injury sustained during a failed attempt to save another soldier's life, a Frank Lambert. His injury resulted in total infertility; his gun still works but he's shooting blanks. He married the man's widow a year and a half after Lambert's death. I think he felt sorry for her since she was practically stone broke despite the death benefits and lump-sum settlement. Raymond Steele put his reputation on the line to get her that much. Rumor was that Lambert was an irresponsible rule-breaker and likely caused the accident himself horsing around, but the results were inconclusive. The mother's a spendthrift and already owed more than she'll ever get form the Marines. She even used some of Ms. Steele's money to cover her debts."
"Speaking of the child…?" I asked. This is what I really wanted to know. If her story was on the up-and-up or if I was getting played by a teeny-bopper.
In lieu of a reply, he pulls a few yearbooks and small newspapers out of his satchel. He opens the books at several marked pages. Usually only senior photos are in color unless a student participates in extracurricular activities and Annie O participated in almost every non-sports related activity her middle and high schools offered. Mathletes, debate club (president), foreign language club (Spanish), newspaper staff, science club, chess club. It was like she was doing everything she could to stay out of her fucking home. In several of the pictures where students were pictured receiving rewards with their parents, Annie was only pictured with an older man, holding their hands up like she'd just won a boxing match or doing fist bumps while grinning madly at the camera. Carla Steele, the stay-at-home mom, was nowhere to be found.
And there was no denying it. The girl was beautiful; one didn't need to look hard to know that this girl would be staggeringly beautiful as an adult. I almost felt ashamed looking at her, knowing she would look like just my type when she grew up. Better than my type, actually. Fabulous, dark, waist-length hair. Huge sky-blue eyes surrounded by long, curling lashes. Rose-pink lips and a big blush. Youth and innocence oozing from every pore. And she was just fourteen! She was the epitome of the term jailbait. I felt like I needed to protect her from the rest of the perverts. Damn! I felt like the biggest one.
The photos of Carla weren't nearly as inspiring. She had medium-length, dirty blonde hair that was overdue for a trim. Annie had her eye-shape and lips, but that was about it. She looked washed out and used up and there was no fucking way on this earth that Morton wanted to run with her into the sunset for her looks alone.
A few photos of Morton were found at the bottom of the pile. He looked smarmy. He was all polished teeth and smiles, but he was uneducated, lacked ambition and barely qualified enough to do anything more than menial labor or lower-level management. And he was supposed to be Carla's meal-ticket. On paper, Ray Steele was far superior to this bastard. You could witness the love and trust that Annie had for him in every photo fairly leaping off the page. And I could tell he returned her devotion in full measure. The mother was dead-weight, tearing the family apart for a slap and a tickle. Disgusting.
With confirmation that everything Annie said in her letter was legit (if anything, she likely understated her concerns), I decided to make contact using the only viable method I had: e-mail. But there's no way I could do that as Christian Grey, billionaire bachelor. That'd be foolhardy in the extreme. I hated reaching out while hiding who I was, but I couldn't see any other way to protect both Annie and myself. If Mia wasn't growing up to be such a little shit, I'd have her do it.
"Barney," a voice answered. I'd found this kid at WSU. He was trying to stay under the radar, but I can detect talent faster than anything. He was a White Knight, Robin Hood hacker. Now he works for me. He probably has a master command center in his parents' basement.
"I need a double-blind anonymous e-mail address, pronto. But I need you to have all the messages filtered and sent to my GEH address," I stated, trusting that Barney would be able to fill in all the blanks.
"What filter protocols do you need?"
"All messages from any combinations or permutations of the name Anastasia, Annie, Ana, Rose, Steele, Lambert or Morton received from this address (I gave him Annie's e-mail address) should be labeled 'Your Perfect Stranger' and marked 'Urgent'," I replied.
"Name you want listed on the account?"
"Chri-," I began, then hesitated, remembering how all this got started in the first place. "Chris Tanner."
"Chris Tanner, got it," he said, already away with the fairies.
"Oh, and can you redirect all messages from Elena Lincoln to my vacation reply?"
"Sure." He said distantly.
"That's all," I said, ending the call. Ten minutes later, Andrea brought in a 3x5 card with my new e-mail details followed by the cryptic message "filtered and shifted."
As directed, Barney had set it up so that any message sent to Annie could come from my GEH account while looking like just another generic Hotmail account. The key to telling a good lie, is wrapping it around a strong kernel of truth and injecting more truth whenever possible.
To: callmeannieo at hotmaildotcom
From: chrisdottanner at hotmaildotcom
Date: Wed, July 8, 2004 at 9:53 AM
Subject: Some Little Girls…
Dear Annie:
It was a very dangerous thing you did, sending a letter filled with identifying information to a perfect stranger. Do you have no regard for your own safety? I was jogging in the park in Seattle where I crashed into your time capsule. It's very pretty, and you should be proud of making it by yourself, but I'm terrified that this could have fallen into less honorable hands.
I received your package at a time when I was really low. I found out a woman I was dating had plotted to get pregnant on purpose and trap me into a relationship with her. Just a day later, I was reading your letter and it reminded me that there's still an honorable person in the world, even if she's a minor. Never change. It's very important to keep your word, and people will respect you more if you do.
I want to be honest and tell you that things get better when you grow up, but you'll find that the fuckery matures along with you, often growing in leaps and bounds; the only difference is that people tend to hold you legally responsible for more of it. Sorry for the profanity, but euphemisms are the grossly inefficient and I call it like I see it.
I'm sorry to hear that you're paying for your parents' decisions, but when I was younger, my entire family had to move cross-country for my mother's job. She does really important work, but our family took a long time to acclimate to our new home and our relationships began to weaken as a result.
I don't get along with my parents, so I know what it's like to lose respect for the people who are responsible for you. I get the impression that your mother never had much time for you either, so I guess you're wondering why she'd want to take you with her. If this worries you, make sure to keep your eyes open to things that look suspicious or appear to be too good to be true. Because they usually are.
By now, you probably have a new stepfather, but let's just call him Three. Your real father is in Montesano. Morton is just your mother's new husband. While you must respect him as any other adult in your life, remember you don't owe him your affections.
About Me: I'm twenty-one. I play the piano and speak French and Spanish. My favorite music is classical, but I can also play by ear. I do indeed like the Eagles, Jamiroquai, John Mayer and the Pretenders, but isn't Prince a little risqué for a person of your tender years? Bob Seger is pretty good, too.
I work in the communications field, and my hours are insane. There's always someone trying to monopolize my time, so I'm glad you included your e-mail address because that's by far the best way to stay in contact with me. Be sure to e-mail me when you get settled, and I'll be sure to respond.
Perfect Stranger at Your Service,
Chris.
P.S. Is your best friend slot still open? I think I'm in need of one.
There! That wasn't too stalkery, was it? Now, all I could do was wait. Please be OK, Annie.
E/N: Our hero is disgusted with life right now, and is tempted to dismiss his family (and Elena) from his life. Ana's letter has come just in time because he's able to see someone whose life is in greater jeopardy than his.
Next: The assignment. Where in the world is Annie O? Annie's response.
Please check out the FB group, FSoG Fanfic Obsessed
Just another Fifty Shades of Grey fanfiction group, obsessed with all things Grey.
Created by: Lanieloveu & SdaisyS
