This chapter is by request for my very special Dana Dandridge for her birthday! I am sorry it is a little late! I hope you like it!
I have said many times how taken aback I am by your response to this story and my take on CG, every chapter I write I keep that in mind. So I hope you enjoy this dive deeper into his past and history and for what I hope sets the stage for what is to come.
Thank you all for reading and please review. Xoxo PPP
Two files sit before me on my desk. Both are thin, containing only a few sheets of paper each. I mulled over them for hours, reading and rereading each and every word until the were committed to memory. The office was quiet on a Sunday. Just me, few security guards and maintenance workers. Sawyer was in the car waiting like he always did. And for the first time in years I felt alone. Not mistaking lonely with alone. They are two completely different things. I have always been lonely, always feeling this absence of connection in my life but I am rarely alone, rarely without a security team or sub in my presence. But right now in this moment I am alone. Blissfully alone and somehow knowing my son exists in the world, that his mother is out there too I am not lonely. The void, at least a part of it has been filled.
Regardless of all that hope I also have this feeling of foreboding. It is amazing how a few white slips of paper can shake you to your core. How a few words and photos can disturb the teetering balance of ones sanity.
Ella... I had forgotten her face. My memory obscuring her features to no more than a blur of long brown hair and the vague impression of dead blue eyes. I am startled when I realize that look like her. Her eyes are my eyes, her lips are my lips. She was born and raised in a small town in Mississippi in a small tight knit religious community. She was a preachers daughter. That hit me like a ton of bricks. God has never played a role in my life. Except when women yell out his name while I fuck them. So to imagine a life in a small southern town, bake sales and revivals and singing in church on Sunday is a foreign to me as living in a tent in Costa Rica.
Ella and I shared more than just our faces, apparently we had the same temperament as well. She was a rebel, a fighter and left her home on a bus to California the day after graduation with Owen Michaels. Her high school boyfriend, not the musician that impregnated her. That was an unknown entity but he lead her to Detroit. Everything after that is a spiral down towards oblivion. I was heading there too if not for Elena's intervention. I am certain that I would have ended up in an alley with a needle in my arm. I certainly would not be sitting in a skyscraper in the middle of Seattle, I building that I own, one of the richest and most powerful men in the world.
I was fifteen. My sophomore year I high school did not go well. I had gotten in to fight after fight. Pummeling anyone who looked at me for more than a moment. My mothers rule about learning a martial art came back to bite her in the ass. I detested my teachers, repelled any one who would even try to get to know me and basically created a situation where I was feared. Always keeping people at a distance, always feigning control.
On the last day of classes my parents were called into the school. They were told that if I didn't shape up that in would not be welcomed back for my junior year. That was fine by me. I would have been contented to drop out all together. More time to play piano and read.
My parents were at their wits end. Elliott and Mia were such easy children. Both beautiful and intelligent they were not broken and star covered like I was. They were capable of more. A future of hope and promise stretched out before them both.
I am still not sure how I ended up doing yard work at the Lincoln's house that summer. I know that my father thought the hard work would exhaust me if nothing else. But deep down I know Elena manipulated my parents into getting exactly what she wanted. Me at her disposal.
There have been many defining moments in my life but none held more brevity than that afternoon with Elena. I had worked for hours in the early summer sun, clearing land on her property for a fire pit and lounge area they were having built for their tenth wedding anniversary party at the end if the summer. Elena convinced my parents that two weeks of hard labor would clear my mind and get my head back on straight.
I liked the exertion and sweat. I liked the sore muscles and how I was able to sleep at night just from the sheer exhaustion. It was a welcome reprieve from my never ending stream of thoughts. I wondered if I could keep it up and for the first time I considered my fathers idle threat to send me to military school. Perhaps that is what I really needed, regiment and physical exhaustion, rules to follow and laws to obey.
Elena was a beautiful woman, at twenty eight she was the youngest in my mothers crowd, her husband ten years her senior. She was tall and lean like a white stallion, her long blond hair shimmered as she moved and her soft brown eyes divulged a wealth of her well hidden sadness - at least to me.
Long before I began working for her, Elena was someone I thought about sexually. I was a raging fifteen year old boy with no outlet from my needs. Elena was a welcome fantasy.
She walked towards me and I remember it feeling like slow motion, her hips swaying in the sheer white fabric of her sarong, it dipped low showing her flat bronze belly and her tits bounced ever so slightly in her black bikini top. She handed me a drink, the ice cubes clinking against the heavy glass. Lemonade. Freshly made. It was sweet and tart and the most delicious thing I had ever tasted. I drank it in two long sips and wiped my mouth off with the back of my hand. And then out if nowhere taking me by complete surprise she slapped me - hard across my face.
"Next time you say please and thank you." My jaw tingled, the rage built in my body and I began to see red.
"What the fuck is you're problem lady!" Her entire stance changed and she slapped me again this time higher on my face across my cheek bone. And then she kissed me. A hot heavy kiss, the taste of lemon and vodka on her lips. Her smooth body pressed up against me. The smell of suntan oil on her skin. My stuff cock pressing into her belly as she turned her hips against me. Her nails digging into my forearms, know that I didn't like to be touched. My first kiss.
It is etched into my memory, the sound the glass made and it hit the ground shattering into pieces at our feet. The small moan from the back of her throat as I lifted her off the ground, her feet bare amongst the broken shards of glass.
We made it to the house and I put her back down on the ground. She looked at me for a moment, her eyes tight and her lips pursed.
"Take off all your clothes Christian. I was to look at you." I did as I was told, leaving my sweaty tank, grey cargo shorts and white briefs in a heap on her polished terrazzo floors. She reached down and grabbed my cock, squeezing it hard, just on the border of painful. It was the first time anyone other then me had touched me there. And honesty she could have broken it off and I wouldn't have cared.
"This is mine now. Do you understand?"
I didn't, not really but in time I would learn. Elena would teach and torture me for the next five years if my life. She created rules and forced me to live by them. What I could and could not wear, the grades she expected me to maintain, even what I could eat was at her design. She managed me completely and I didn't have to think, just do. And it was a freedom I never knew was possible. Durning my time with her, in the playroom I didn't have to feel anything but the pleasure and pain she gave me. And then in time all I had to focus on was the pain and pleasure I gave her. There is no better drug then giving up your power or wielding over someone completely.
But now I realize that was and possibly am still an addict, no different than my mother. No better, no stronger. All my millions and I am still just a whore.
After that first summer with Elena my parents saw the change in me, they assumed it was for the better and I was allowed back in school. What I didn't realize is that what I thought the military would give me, structure, discipline, focus was all provided by Elena. Her words drilled into my brain, to obey her. All her ideas on love, her marriage of convenience, Linc was her Dom turned husband whom she married for his money. Love in Elena's mind was a waste of time. It didn't last nor did it feed the body and soul the way fucking did. Fucking was paramount, the church and prayer. It was the reason for all else. Pain was the conduit to pleasure and power was the flame to the dynamite. The more she wanted the more I gave. And Elena always wanted more. She wanted to touch me, my chest and back but my hard limits were clear. The day she ignored my limits was the day our roles switched and I became the one in power.
We were in my office, not the one I am in now. My first office, downtown. It was late. We were on the small sofa, Elena was riding me hard and fast, my cock deep inside of her. She had spent the better part of an hour wielding a cane across my back. Twenty eight lashes in all. Not the most I had ever taken, but close. I had cancelled our lunch plans in favor for a meeting and Elena took it out on my flesh and then my cock. She would not let me cum, edging me right to the brink and then denying me release. It was torture albeit deserved. I knew Elena would be angry at my cancellation, I counted on it. I wanted to be punished and she was giving me what I wanted and needed.
As she rode me, I could see this wicked look take over her face. She reached out, wrapping her fingers around my throat and at the same time pressed her hand to my chest.
This wave of sheer panic coursed through me as I grabbed her hands by the wrist and pushed her flat on her back into the floor. I quickly followed, and thrust back into her. Her hands over her head, I was holding her wrist so right that I could feel her pulse. I fucked her hard and came violently. In that moment, I knew everything had changed and it all began.
All roads have lead me here. My life is empty but now my heart is full and in that I am finding hope. Ana's file tells me a sad story. Her birth father died before she was born, and we share the bond of having a parent not of our own blood. Her mother Carla remarried an Army man, Ray Steele, who appears to have raised Ana as his own. She grew up being shuffled about after her parents divorce.
What really broke my heart is the path her life took after we met. She dropped out of college that January, leaving her job at the bar and her life behind. She went back to Montesedo, and moved in with her father. There is a photo from Facebook, of her baby shower. She is standing between Kate and Jose, a broad smile on her face but an apparent sadness in her eyes. Her belly is round and full, her cheeks cubby and her nose slightly swollen. She was still breathtakingly beautiful and I found myself looking at the photo for well over an hour, imagining my hands on her belly instead of Jose's.
From the medical reports her birth was textbook. Leo Raymond Steele was born June 20th, at three in the afternoon. There was no father listed on his birth certificate. She lived with Ray for the first year, not working just being with her son. After that Ana took a job in a local back as a teller, she is now the assistant manager. She still tends bar on the weekends for extra money, a hole in the wall called Red Rooster.
All of her plans to graduate and have a life doing what she loved was gone. In one moment of insanity I had changed every dream she ever had. In her story I was the villain, and she was the hero in mine. No wonder she hated me. How could she feel any other way. I was the monster that fucked and abandoned her.
It hits me in that moment that I need to go to her. I can't give her space or time, I can't give her a chance to doubt. She needs to know my intent. She needs to know that I love her. Maybe she won't forgive me, maybe she won't forget. But I have to try.
Two hours later I find myself out side her door. It is a small house, old single pane windows, wood clap boards in dire need of a coat of paint but it is cozy and cheerful. Pots of flowers dot the walk way, cheerful white daisies and bright purple pansies. There is a swing hanging from the tall maple tree in the front yard and Leo's Fisher Price buggy in the gravel driveway. It's a good home, a happy home. The kind of place you think back on fondly. A place where you are safe. That is all I could ever want for my son, safety.
It takes all my courage to knock on the door. I tap lightly and I hear her call out over the barking of a seemingly large dog. The door opens and there she stands before me a shaggy brown dog at her feet. She snaps her fingers and orders him back. He complies and lays on the floor beside her. She is fresh out of a shower wrapped up in a fuzzy pink robe. Her cheeks bright red, her hair high in a bun on her head, a smile on her face that slowly vanishes the moment she sees me.
All I want to do is kiss her. I want to take her mouth and make her lips puffy and sore. I want to hold her and feel her flesh under my fingers. But most of all I want her to want me. I want her to need me. I want...
"What... What are you doing here?" She stammers and tightens the tie of the robe around her waist.
"I needed to see you Ana. There is so much we need to work out. Can I please come in?"
"Leo isn't here, he went fishing with my dad and Jose Sr." I am disappointed that my boy isn't there, but relieved that Ray isn't. One less person to explain this mess too, for now anyway.
She looks at me and I can tell she is considering if she should let me in or not. Finally she sighs and steps aside letting me pass her into the threshold.
"Let me go get changed and I will make us some tea." I nod once watching her ascend up the stairs, wishing I was going there with her.
The house is just as cozy and shabby on the inside as it is on the outside. Everything needs a good coat of paint but again I feel relaxed here and strangely at ease.
A few moments later she returns, in grey sweats and a tee shirt with the name if her bank on it. I already made a few phone calls about buying the small savings and loan. She motions for me to follow her into the kitchen and pulls out a wicker backed chair for me to sit down. She says nothing as she goes to task, putting the water to boil and getting our cups ready. I don't drink tea, but now is not the time to let her know that. Finally she sits across from me, a hot cup of tea before is both and I am suddenly at a loss for words. I can't believe that after all this time apart we are sipping tea together. It seems like only yesterday we were sipping Makers Mark.
"Christian... I don't know what you want..."
"I want you Ana. I have always wanted you. All this time. From the very first second I saw you I wanted you. No. I needed you. I needed you. And like everything good in my life I fuck it up. I let you push me away. I forced myself not to find you. But thought about you everyday. I went to great lengths, things I am not proud of to forget. But you are mine. You could pass a hundred men on the street and to them you are just a pretty girl. No more than a moments thought. To me you are everything. If I had just passed you on the street I would have remembered you forever. So I am here telling you that I want you. That I need you and that I am willing to do what ever it takes to have you want me too. That you and I are destined. I am sure of that even if you aren't." The words flowed out of me like leaves blowing in the wind. I had now conscious thought, only the feeling in my heart and the words as they left my mouth. She looked at me, her face showing a range of emotions. Her battle raged on the one with her head and her heart. She reached across the table and placed her hand over mine giving it a gentle squeeze and a tear rolled down her cheek. Then she reached up and wiped away a tear on my cheek. I was not even aware that I was crying. We sat like that in silence for a few moments, our hands intertwined, the cups if tea now cold.
She cocked her head to one side, a lock of hair falling in her face. I felt my stomach tighten and my heart stop knowing that her next words could change everything. She inhaled deeply and exhaled loudly.
"Well, it's too late to stop now."