Disclaimer: As always I don't own Twilight or Secretary… they belong to very talented people and I just like to play with what they wrote.

So much thanks goes to my pre-reader Cecile who kept me on my toes with how I can improve on the context of what was written. And to J'me for all her wonderful beta work, without her this story wouldn't have any commas or em-dashes… js

Also thank you to everyone who takes the time to Fav/Alert this story or myself and reviews. Your words are what keep me writing even when I want to sleep.

Also a big thank you to my WC girls… they make sure I keep writing. I love you ladies dearly.

I think this is one of last few chapters that we will have so much similarity to the Secretary… I caught it on HBO a couple of weeks back and I found myself seeing that I was mirroring it way too much for my own liking. So yes the story will still model after the movie, but I will try to avoid being almost exact like it. Believe me its never been my intension to be so similar.

As you can see this chapter is coming to you guys on time... I would have posted a couple of days earlier but FF.n was being fail... Also Happy BD part one DVD release day... I already got my copy with flower from Target... Let me know how many of you went out to get your movies…

I have a polyvore and a blog (links on profile for both) that I post pictures and outfits… I suck at using it but it will help with some of the visuals that I describe.

Now on with the chapter… Enjoy

***TCBS***

Edward sat in his office trying to figure out how he was going to approach Bella when she came in. He needed to get answers, and he needed to make sure Isabella didn't hurt herself any longer. He couldn't figure out where the compulsion to help her was coming from. But, he knew that he wouldn't be able to breathe, or sleep, or even think straight until he knew what she suffered from and why she thought that hurting herself was the only way. He sat in his office for so long he didn't even notice when Bella arrived.

Bella knocked quietly, not really wanting to disturb her boss. She was already going to have to apologize for reacting the way she had the day before. She didn't need to make him anymore upset with her than he most definitely would be already.

"Come in, Isabella," Edward called out to her in an easy tone.

Bella peeked her head into the office, "I just wanted to let you know I was here, and that I was very sorry for my reaction yesterday."

"Wait, Bella, come in. I wanted to talk to you about something," Edward said before he got up and headed to the couch that was on the other side of his office.

Bella walked in with unsure steps, terrified that Edward was about to fire her. That fear made stronger by the fact that he didn't call her Isabella, which would prove, once again, how inadequate of a human she really was.

"Please don't be nervous or scared. I just want to talk to you about yesterday."

Bella felt like each step she took was one closer to the end. Her nerves were frayed; she was scared and anxious, so much so that she couldn't stop the trembling in her hands or the shaking of her knees. Bella swallowed many times trying to get the knot in her stomach to stay there and not make itself present in her throat, or worse yet, make her sick. That was the last thing she needed.

Edward could see how pale Isabella had gotten, but he refused to let the conversation slide. He needed answers, and he needed them right away . He also knew that no one else was going to be able to supply him with those but Isabella. He patted a space next to him on the couch, and adjusted himself so as to give off an image of relaxation.

"Breathe, Isabella; I just really want to talk."

Bella took in a big cleansing breath, and tried to mentally prepare herself for what was to come. She sat stiffly on the couch and didn't even wait for a full thirty seconds before she began to apologize. "About my reaction to you touching me yesterday, Mr. Cullen, I am so sorry. I am not used to anyone purposely trying to see my skin. I'm not used to the clothes that Ms. Alice suggested for me to start wearing either."

Edward let her go until she was at a stopping point before interjecting. "Isabella, I am the one who should be apologizing to you. It was none of my business to know what was on your skin. I was afraid you may have gotten hurt while working here, and mostly wanted to make sure you were okay. I really overstepped my bounds by touching you the way that I did. For that, I am very sorry, however, I am not sorry at all for what I want now. I want- no scratch that- I NEED answers, and I need them now. Alice is a good therapist and would never divulge your secrets to me, so I am asking you for them."

Bella just nodded her head, wordlessly telling Edward that he was welcomed to ask her anything. She figured if it was too much for her to handle, she'd just let him know that she couldn't, or rather wouldn't, be answering.

"May I see the marks on your legs?"

Lifting the skirt of the black dress she'd worn to work that day, she showed him the scars that traveled up and down her legs. The ones on the backs of her thighs were the worst. The dark, rough skin was still red in parts. She turned to allow him to see the worst scar of them all- The one on her upper left inner thigh being the ugliest one. She tried to use a broken piece of glass once, and since it wasn't sharp enough, it didn't cut the skin smoothly. That caused huge lacerations to form, forcing her to abandon her usual butterfly bandage and she was stuck using crazy glue to close the cut. The sting from the chemicals was an added benefit, but she swore to never do it that way again.

Edward caressed each scar as it came into his view. He hated that she ever thought that the only escape was to hurt herself, but he needed to know if there were more. He needed to see them all, if only to help with his overwhelming desire to protect her. "Are your legs the only place you've hurt yourself?"

"No, I have some on my arms as well." Bella removed the long-sleeved black jacket she had on, and allowed Edward to see the ones that marred her upper arms and shoulders. Some of them were fresh, still red or pink from just beginning to heal. The ones on her right shoulder were still scabbing. Even though it'd been a while since she actually cut herself, she didn't let some of those heal, constantly picking at the scabs, more so out of boredom than anything else. Again, she felt Edward's fingers ghosting along the skin where her scars were.

"Why do you do this?" Edward felt like he wouldn't be able to think of anything else unless he knew that information.

"Because it hurts too much not to. It hurts too much to know that I wasn't able to stop the pain sooner, to stop the torture. It's the only thing that I was able to control for so long- even when I couldn't stop the rest- I was able to decide how much pain I put on myself." Bella was back to making herself numb of any emotions so that she could speak about what happened in her past.

"I want more answers, but for now I think I will leave them for another time." Edward was trained to read people's body language, and Bella's told him that she was nowhere close to being able to explain her story in detail and be mentally present while doing so. Even if the questions burned him, he had to control the need to know more, for her sake.

"Are you still cutting yourself? Did you hurt yourself last night?"

"No, Ms. Alice forbade me from hurting myself and I could not defy her." Bella could feel the warmth that began to spread across her cheeks at the explanation, remembering the reaction she had the first time she'd met Alice.

Edward smiled internally at the admission from Isabella, as well as the wording she used. He knew Alice well enough to know that if Isabella was using words like forbade and defy, she'd given her the command in her Domme voice. No one, not even he would dare go against her when she spoke in that tone. It also let him know that Isabella was indeed a natural submissive, and may take to his suggestion willingly. "Alice said something about a bag to me yesterday, is that where you keep your cutting tools?"

Bella nodded her head in affirmation. "Go retrieve it and bring it back to me." Bella curiously got up and went to her desk to take her make up bag out of her purse and then walked back in and handed it to Edward right away.

"I'm going to take this, and you're never getting it back. I am going to destroy it somewhere that you will never be able to find it. Also, you are not going to replace it. It is now gone for good. Do you understand what I'm saying?" Edward waited until Isabella acknowledged what he was saying to her before he continued. "Good. Now, I have a proposition for you. It is a little different, but I think you will enjoy it immensely. I also think that it will help you with your need for pain. Are you open minded enough to listen to everything before you ask any questions?"

Bella took a moment to think about everything Edward was saying. She was feeling comfortable with his soft and relax demeanor. It was easy for her to let him have her bag, seeing as she hadn't used it in a month, as well as the fact that she now had the yoga to help her when she was really stressed. So, what else could it be that he could want from her? Reasoning that there couldn't possibly be anything too hard for her to handle after all she'd been through in life, she looked up at him with expectant eyes, "What is it you have in mind?"

"Do you know what BDSM is?" He asked her. When she shook her head in the negative, he went on to explain. "It stands for Bondage/Discipline/ Domination/Submission/ Sadism/Masochism. You've heard of some of these before, right?"

"That's like beating a woman to get her off, isn't it?" Bella questioned with trepidation. She was beginning to get nervous about where the conversation was going.

"It's more complicated than that, and there is no 'beating'. That being said, there is spanking and pleasurable pain involved. There are also a lot of other things involved, like being able to communicate, trust, and respect each other. You also have to know that I would never intentionally do anything that would put you in real harm. My hope is to help you by doing something that will not only help you release your emotional and physical needs in a healthier and safer fashion. I do not ever want to see you hurting yourself because you can't get the pain out of your system by only cutting. I want you to know that there are so many other ways to doing so. I am sure that Alice has explained some that are more conventional, but this is another option. Are you willing to try and to learn about it all?"

Looking at Edward's soft sincere eyes, Bella was able to quickly decide that she was willing to try anything, especially with him. "I can sort of see what the benefits for me are in this thing, but what benefits are there for you?" she questioned.

Edward knew what the real benefit for him was, but he gave her the answer that she would understand the most. "I get to help you see what a great person you really are, I get to witness you flourish from this shy woman that sits in front of me today into the confident beautiful woman that I KNOW you can be."

Bella blushed at his compliments. She wasn't used to anyone but her family complimenting her, and none of them had ever called her beautiful. "'I'm sorry, Edward, but I'm not beautiful, I'm plain, simple, and ordinary. There is nothing about me that even suggests that I can be what you are saying that I am."

"If we are going to do this, Isabella, you better start learning as of now that I DO NOT like to be contradicted. And if I say that you are a beautiful woman, then, damn it! You shut your mouth and accept it! Because I will never, and I mean, NEVER, lie to you." Edward spoke through clenched teeth to keep his irritation at her straight-out disrespect from showing. He had to remember that she was just finding out about all of this and it would take some time for her to know that when he said something, he meant it.

Bella nodded her head in understanding, too scared to speak for fear of setting him off again. "Now, for the rest of the day, I do not have much for you to do work wise, so what I want you to do is to spend the day doing research on what BDSM is, and what those who are submissives, like yourself, do, and are like. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask me, or you can ask Alice about anything as well. I will be letting her know about this conversation." Bella was surprised to know that Alice was going to know and also a bit embarrassed. Would she think differently of her because of what she was about to do?

Seeing the uncertainty in Bella's face, Edward quickly assured her that Alice would be perfectly understanding about everything. He wanted to explain to her that Alice lived the lifestyle with her husband as well, but thought it inappropriate to say anything pertaining to someone else's life. The only reason he was going to tell Alice about this change was because she was not only someone Bella could speak to about it, but also because she was her therapist and he'd need to know a little bit more of what some of the triggers for Bella would be. There was no way she'd be able to tell him when she didn't know herself.

Since he was no longer looking at her and seemed to be lost in thought, Bella got up and went back to her desk. She was sure that his instructions of what he wanted her to do for work that day was, in a way, his dismissal from his office.

She quickly powered up her computer and opened up her favorite search engine. Then, she quickly typed into the Google box "BDSM information." What she got were over forty-million results. Never in her life would she have thought there would be that much information available on the internet. While some of the sites she came across were obviously porn sites, which surprisingly turned her on greatly at some of the images she was able to see before exiting the site, she was also able to find a number of webpages with news articles, and others that were filled with various and detailed information about where she can go to find books and such. She spent the majority of her time reading about what different rolls there were in the lifestyle, why people chose to live like that, and the misconceptions people had of BDSM. She learned that she was a submissive and had been that way her entire life. She learned that as a submissive she had as much, if not more power on what she was comfortable with doing. One of the sites that she came across had information on all the different types of relationships that could be found in the BDSM world, and how the submissive role varied in each. She wasn't sure which one Edward preferred most, but was now looking forward to exploring more. Bella spent a great deal of time researching as Edward told her, and by the time it was time to go home, she saw that she'd spent almost seven hours doing nothing but that. In the end, the most important thing about everything for her was that she learned that there was no abuse in the lifestyle, and how common it was for people to think that. This put her at ease that she wasn't alone in her initial assumption.

***TCBS***

AN: I know this chapter was on the short side, but it was important to have this talk… This will get us to what we are all anxious to read… some actual BDSM.

I wanted to wait to the end to thank some special people. I got a beautiful review with the last chapter that not only made me cry but it also had be reading it to the hubs (who thought I was nuts BTW) so Lost Soul, I can't thank you enough for your words. And to Erika Shoval and Midnight Ariel who went back and reviewed each chapter all my hugs and kisses. Also to those group admins who have added this story to your C2's and pimped it in the different FB groups, I cant say how wonderful that makes me feel. Thank you for your support.

As always I will send a small tease to each reviewer.