NOTE FROM RIOTTORI: I HAD A BIT OF TIME AND DECIDED TO DEDICATE IT TO MY STORY. THANK YOU FOR ALL THE MESSAGES AND SUPPORT. I'M SO PLEASED YOU UNDERSTOOD WHY ANA COULD NEVER HAVE BEEN ALICE'S DOM. AND AT LAST, ANA FOUND HER VOICE WHICH HAD BEEN 'SILENT ALL THESE YEARS'. SORRY, COULDN'T RESIST PAYING HOMAGE TO TORI AMOS. ;)
Ana:
I never wanted to lose the Ana that I found in the office that day – the Ana that I was forced to find, the Ana that I had lost once. Nor did I want to lose the core of me, the heart of me, who was good and kind. I refused to believe that Alice – poor, inexperienced Alice – was right. That I had to be cruel to exist, to thrive. No, I reconciled the shades of Ana in my office that day, and I rose from the ashes, my feathers fashioned from my many facets.
I visited Black alone, initially. Before I could understand why Christian had been unfaithful, I had to explore first why I had let him. We brought my demons, screaming, into the light, shone a torch on them, examined them. I suppose I had always known too much about human nature, the desires that motivate people to act the way they do, to believe that my husband wouldn't one day want to explore uncharted waters. Even my 22-year-old self had questioned this which was why Mrs Robinson's words had resonated so deeply. Through time, I learnt the power of self-worth, the strength that self-esteem gives you. I learnt to love myself again. Only then did we re-introduce Christian.
We stood, that first day back in Black's office, on the threshold of the new, the dark path behind us, the road we had traversed the past 20 years. There was too much at stake for us just to walk away. I knew it and he had come to realize it.
My husband was pale with guilt, just a shade of his former self, as worry and remorse ate away at him. I had the ability to breathe life back into him, to make him shine again. I also had the power to destroy him – I knew that.
I won't pretend it was easy. The walls of Black's office were often splattered with anger; furious words were fired like bullets, reverberated around the walls and hit home. I found out about the Subs – there were 9 in total. Alice never really counted. They were all professional, all willing, all lasted only one month or less. He never saw them outside The Red Room. It was all about pure, unadulterated sex. Sex and love – two different things. Slowly, I was beginning to realize that.
We talked about Alice. He had been taken in, deceived, thought somehow he was getting me back, reliving our first meeting and the hope that I had inspired 20 years ago. He understood there was only one Ana, only one girl he would ever love. I believe he would have seen through her eventually – I needed to believe that if we were ever going to move on from this. It would have been too tiring for her to adopt the Anastasia Grey role for ever. The tainted, trickster Alice would eventually have crept through.
We dated on non-Black days. He continued his wooing. We laughed and talked and ate and drank as if we didn't have a care. As if our other selves, The Greys, weren't picking through the pieces of our relationship. We needed it, a little bit of love in our lives.
We indulged in vanilla. It took some time but we got there. He touched me, kissed almost every inch of the skin that he knew so well, as well as his own. I once thought that familiarity had been a bad thing. I now realized I was wrong. But more importantly, so did he. He worshiped me like a queen, like a goddess. My name on his lips was like a validation.
And one day, months later, as I entered the bedroom we shared once again, I found our favorite tie on the bed with a note pinned to it. I picked it up and saw my husband's neat handwriting:
Meet me in The Room? Yours, C x
I looked at it, at the tie that was such a big part of our relationship, and wondered if I could take the step. I wanted the intimacy that existed between us in The Room – it strengthened the relationship we had forged out of it. Twenty years ago, I had wanted to give him this, knew that he needed it. Now, I did. This was for me, too. It was our chance to get back to how we'd been. It was the only route back.
Desire bloomed deep inside, in a forgotten place, but there was also a strong shock of fear. Could I do this? Could he do this?
I looked in the mirror and gave my reflection a little nod. I carefully pulled my hair back into a high pony-tail. There was only one way to find out.