Chapter 11
Christian PoV
After a short cat nap, which we both needed, Ana and I headed into the shower. We were going to test her abilities to touch me. I was less nervous about it, given she had been freely touching my back and I didn't have a meltdown. She told me she was so proud of me, and she knew she was taking a risk by doing that. It had been worth it. Every kiss and touch from her healed my soul, and I couldn't wait to get more.
She began by covering a wash cloth with jasmine scented body wash. I was going to smell like a woman, but I didn't care. First, she washed me all over, using the wash cloth, not touching me with her hands. When I didn't have any negative reactions to that, she discarded the wash cloth and replaced it with her bare hands. I tensed slightly when her hands roamed from my chest to my shoulders. She hesitated, searching my eyes for approval to continue. I nodded slightly and she went on.
"You're doing so well, baby," she told me. I gave her a small smile in return.
"Would you let me touch your back?" I asked. I realized I hadn't yet, and I hadn't even seen it.
"Um, okay," she replied. "There are a lot more scars there than anywhere else, so you've been warned."
"Understood." I poured a generous amount of body wash in my hands, rubbed it into a lather and asked her to turn around. Slowly, she did so, her body emanating her anxiety. "I won't hurt you, baby," I whispered to her. She nodded her reply.
I took the body wash and washed along her shoulders first, sure to keep my eyes only where my hands were. I knew I was bound to have a reaction to her scars and I wanted to see and feel them at the same time. As I moved down her shoulder blades, I began to feel the raised flesh of a scar. Underneath my hands were dozens of long, skinny scars. They looked like the kind one would get if they'd been whipped really, really hard. I removed my hands from her skin as they were shaking.
"How did these occur, Ana?" I asked, using every cell of my being to contain the rage.
"When I was naughty, or rather, when she thought I was naughty, I was whipped with a belt, a rope, an electrical cord, anything she could find to hit me with. Sometimes, if she was too out of it, she'd have whatever man was over do it for her. She'd make me hold on to the door frame in the kitchen while they delivered the blows. Sometimes they'd hit me so hard I'd bleed. Hence the scars."
"Oh, Anastasia. I'm so sorry," I told her. I wrapped her in my arms and pulled her close to me. She leaned her head back and rested it against my shoulder.
"Your touch is helping, Christian. I'm not afraid anymore. My skin is still super sensitive there, and I remember the pain, but it's not paralyzing, it's not panic inducing. Keep going, please."
I nodded and resumed my washing of her back. All the way down to the small of her back, she was covered in these scars. I was reminded of a movie I'd seen about slavery in the south. When a slave would try to run away or disobey the master or steal, they'd chain them to a whipping post and deliver lashes. I was disgusted with myself to think that I practiced the same kind of punishing. I never whipped so hard that anyone bled, but still, the premise was the same.
"How can you stand to be near me, Anastasia?" I whispered. "I'm a monster."
She quickly turned around. "Listen to me," she said, grasping my chin, forcing me to look up away from the floor and into her deep blue eyes. "You are nothing like them. They were cruel and heartless and full up on drugs and alcohol. You may have punished women, but it was completely consensual, and you didn't make them bleed, am I right?" I nodded. "Okay, then. That's settled. Plus, the moment you realized that I would neither want nor tolerate that aspect in a relationship, you changed your tune. You said yourself that you don't want to hurt me."
I listened to her words and I wanted so badly to believe them. But so many years of whipping little brown haired girls had me full of doubts. "What is it going to take, Christian? How can we get you past your demons? Is it not enough that I'm here? Willingly standing here with you, no contracts, no obligations, but because I truly want to be with you. Probably the one person who would be the most repellant to your ways is standing here in the shower with you. Letting you touch me. Making love with you twice, now. Perhaps we should go see Dr. Flynn today," she suggested.
"Together? As a couple?" I asked.
She nodded. "I think we could show him how far we've both come since we last saw him a few days ago. And perhaps he can shed some light on this self-flagellation problem you seem to have."
"Okay, I'll make an appointment while you dress," I decided.
We finished up in the shower, I helped wash her hair and she mine. And then once we were toweled off and dry, she realized she didn't have any clean clothes. "I'm not wearing that dress to see Flynn," she said, a grimace on her face.
"Um, there's clothing here for you," I told her. "In my closet. When I had Taylor buy the robe, he bought some other things as well." My subs had all been trained to accept anything I gave with no argument, I had bought the clothes when I thought she'd be my sub, but clearly that wasn't the case now.
"Aww, you're so thoughtful! Thanks, baby," she said, kissing me on the cheek. I liked playful, innocent Anastasia. And, that went over better than I expected. I didn't know why I expected her to throw a fit over me buying her clothes. Although, she hadn't seen the tags yet, maybe the fit was yet to come. "How did you know my sizes so well?" she asked. I could hear her rifling through the selection.
"Well I've a good eye and an excellent personal shopper named Carolyn Acton at Neiman Marcus," I explained. "She also had seen pictures of you before, I guess, and was able to pick the sizes fairly accurately. Do you like them?"
"Yes, Christian. Everything is beautiful, and just my style, too." A few minutes later, she emerged, wearing a beautiful deep turquoise sleeveless blouse with black dress pants. She'd found the shoe collection, too and selected a pair of Vuitton heels that matched the blouse perfectly. With a black cardigan and a simple brush through of her hair, she was ready to go. She didn't have a stitch of make up on, but it didn't matter. She didn't need it.
"You look lovely, my dear," I told her. She blushed and smiled up at me. I pulled her into my arms and kissed her soundly. She responded in kind, wrapping her arms around my waist, pulling me flush against her. I could feel her entire delectable body pressing against mine. I was still in only a towel, so the sensations were more than distracting. "Unless we want to have to head back in the shower, I suggest we stop." I pressed a light kiss to her nose and one to her forehead before releasing her and retreating to the closet to get myself dressed.
A few minutes later, we were ready to go and had called Flynn to see if he was available. Curiously, he was always available whenever I called. Anastasia had said the same. We wondered if somehow we were his only clients, or if he just dropped everything any time she or I called.
We piled into my R8 and were on our way. "I've got one of these," she mentioned, caressing the dashboard. I found myself suddenly very jealous of the bloody dashboard. "Mine's midnight blue with a cream interior. They're great cars, aren't they? Very safe." She reached over and captured one of my hands in her own, resting our joined hands against my leg. Instantly and very effectively diffusing my jealous thoughts.
"My thoughts exactly," I agreed.
Anastasia PoV
We arrived at Flynn's office and were quickly ushered into the room. Christian and I sat together on the sofa, hand in hand. "I see you two have overcome some of your individual issues already," Flynn commented.
"Yes, we have," Christian answered. "I've been allowed to touch this wonderful woman, and can also stand for her to touch me. It's quite the revelation. She's also showed me that my previous form of therapy, in which I contract young brunettes to be my submissives and then punish them in the way I wish I could my mother, isn't working."
"Christian, I've been saying that for years," Flynn countered.
"Yes, but it took her perspective, I think." He caressed my hand as he spoke. "The perspective of a person who has been just as neglected and abused, if not more so, than I was, and under nearly the same circumstances. It took seeing how she overcame those demons, and while she never forgave her mother for what she did to her as a child, she no longer is angry at her."
"Oh?" Flynn replied, as if he's never heard those words from me. Which he hasn't. "Please do elaborate, Ana."
"I haven't been angry at my biological mother for quite some time now. What she did to me does still affect me. I still have my fears of, well, everything, but I'm not angry. I know everything that happened to me is entirely her fault, but there's no anger. I feel pity. I feel sorry for her," I explained. I launched into a similar explanation that I gave to Christian.
"Where I turned all my neglect and abuse into fear, Christian turned his into anger. And he felt the need to punish his mother for what she did. What I helped him realize is that whipping and caning brunettes that resemble his mother, isn't punishing her. It's only punishing himself. Every time he does it, he's reminded of what she did to him. Or what she let her boyfriends do to him. And the cycle begins again. I asked him if after all these years of having submissives has lessened his anger towards his mother, and he said no.
"I explained to him that it clearly isn't working. Therapy is meant to go away after a while, in most cases. Like a sports injury should heal with physical therapy, leading to the limb being fully functional again without the daily exercises. In this case, it's more or less the same. Over time, whatever form of therapy he used should have lessened more and more as his anger diminished through the release he got from punishing these women. But that didn't occur. If anything he needed it more and more as time went on."
"That's correct," Flynn agreed. "Christian was increasing the severity of his punishments for the past few submissives, isn't that correct?"
"Yes, it is," Christian said, squeezing my hand for support. I squeezed back, letting him know I was still with him.
"I also told him that he has already risen above his mother. He's already better than her. By becoming who he is today. A successful businessman, member of a loving family, not succumbing to the hell of drugs and alcohol. He's moved so far beyond where she had any hope of going."
"That's wonderful," Flynn complimented. "It looks like he should be paying you instead of me," he joked.
"I believe I did say that the other night," Christian added, squeezing my knee affectionately. "And by some miracle, this woman has changed me irrevocably. I have no desire to punish her; I don't even want to take her into the play room at all. And it has little to do with her adversities to being restrained and hit with things, and more to do with my disgust at anything that could ever cause her pain. Physical or emotional."
"And what changes have you undergone, Ana?" Flynn asked me.
"Well, as you can see, Christian is touching me," I began. "I don't feel nervous in his presence like I do with most men. We were um… we were able to make love last night and I didn't panic at all."
"Wow!" Flynn exclaims. "Ana, this is huge. I know we've discussed at length your issues with that and I won't go into it with Christian here, but—"
"No, it's okay," I stated cutting him off. "Christian knows everything anyway. Please feel free to speak freely. About me, anyway."
"And about me as well," Christian added. "I don't want to hide anything from Anastasia."
"Very well then," Flynn responded. "Anastasia, you've said in no uncertain terms before that you're terrified to death of sex, and of men in general."
"I was," I replied. "And then I met this guy." I reached over and squeezed Christian's leg the way he did mine. "It seems like we're polar opposites, what with his BDSM preferences, but something about him told me that he was the right guy. I never felt afraid with him, even when we first met. It was like he could read my soul and he knew exactly what to say and how to touch me to ensure I was as comfortable as possible. I've never felt this way with anyone before.
"But let's get down to the reason we made this appointment today," I continued. "Earlier today, Christian saw the scars on my back. Scars I received as a result of being whipped severely with various instruments. He then compared the actions of my mother and her abusive boyfriends and pimps with his own actions as a Dom. I tried to explain that the two situations were completely different, but he still sees himself as a monster."
"She's right Christian. You can't make comparisons simply based on the fact that both scenarios involved a whip of sorts. Your encounters have all been completely consensual and you've never taken it beyond any of your submissives' limits, correct?" Christian nodded. "What happened to Anastasia is the result of poor and abusive parenting. Anastasia has told me that she'd be whipped for things such as peeing her bed when she'd been tied to it for so long, she couldn't hold it any more. And for interrupting her mother when she was doing drugs or other things. She was beaten for asking for more food when there was never enough in the house. And once she was even beaten for stealing food from the fridge to feed her little brother who was nearly dead from starvation."
I cringed at the memories of all the stories Flynn was recounting. I remembered them like they were yesterday, in perfect detail. I remembered the feeling of every blow from the belts, every tear that stained my cheeks, every pang of hunger that went unnoticed. I scooted closer to Christian, practically into his lap. He took the sign and lifted me into his arms and held me close. I sobbed silently into his shoulder while Flynn continued. "I'm sorry Anastasia, I didn't mean to drudge that up. That was reprehensible."
"No it's okay," I replied. "I'm fine now. Can we go?" I requested. Christian nodded and I climbed off his lap, to stand up. "Thank you doctor Flynn, as always. I'm sorry for breaking down, but I think we'll be alright. We just need to make sure we're always communicating with each other, and always honest." He nodded and thanked us for stopping by. I held back my snort. Right, thanks for being able to charge double for an hour since we were both in there.
Christian PoV
I could have killed Flynn for bringing up Ana's past like that. She looked so afraid and vulnerable as he recounted various stories she'd likely told him. I knew she had eidetic memory. She remembered every single second of her life in perfect detail, probably right down to the feeling of a belt across her sensitive skin.
As we got down to the lobby, I left her standing near the door while I went to get the car. It was pouring rain and I didn't want her to ruin her brand new shoes. She stood near the reception desk, chatting animatedly with the security clerk that was stationed there. I stifled my jealous nature, telling myself that she wanted me and only me. I'm the only one that makes her feel safe. I'm the only one that gets to touch her. I repeated the phrases like a litany until I pulled up in the R8. I ran back inside to escort her out.
She hopped in the car and scowled at me. "What?" I asked.
"You're jealous of the security guard," she accused. "Keep your hair on Grey; you know I only have eyes for you. I was fending off a panic attack the entire time I was talking with him."
"Really?" I asked.
"Yes," she answered. "It appears that you're the only man that I truly feel comfortable with."
"Well, that makes me feel good, but I do want to help you be comfortable with those around you. I'd hate for you to continually live in fear."
"It won't be forever. You're helping me so much, Christian," she told me. She reached over and caressed my cheek. I leaned into her touch, turning my head to kiss her palm.
"I love you," I whispered. She gasped.