Author's Note: Welcome to this story, and thanks for following it. I can't make any promises about finishing it, but I can say that I've got it planned out. The chapters will be significantly shorter than my other two stories, but in the end, if I get there, the final word count will probably be similar, which means a lot more chapters. There's a lot of drama planned ahead, but these first 30+ chapters are all about Ana and Christian getting together. Once they're together, then the real drama will start. The same usual characters from the original story will appear, along with some new ones of my own invention. The most prominent new character is BB Bennington. His sisters (Beatrice, Bethany, and Beverly) will also appear. Christian also has younger siblings, Carson and Gabriela, who are important in this story. Mia and Elliot are present, too, but they are very different than the originals. Both are more mature. Elliot is already married to Kate with a baby on the way, and Mia is almost finished with Law School (Harvard). I hope you like it. :)
Chapter 1: You're Losing Your Touch
Another sleepless night, Christian thought to himself as he sat at his piano, playing it skillfully but absently. He couldn't get his recent conversation with Elena out of his mind. Lately, she had been getting on his nerves, insisting on his taking on submissives that he didn't want. The women she was finding for him just weren't doing it for him anymore. He wasn't sure why, but he no longer found them attractive, and he was little by little losing any desire to even punish them. In fact, the only way he'd been able to get off lately was by playing with them openly at his club, Down Under, and by seeking out a certain pair of ocean blue eyes in the crowd.
When he'd threatened to end his arrangement with Elena and find his own subs, she had laughed in his face. "Where do you think you'd be without me, darling?" she had said tauntingly. "Most likely, you'd be in prison. You were an out of control brat when I took you under my wing, and now look at you. I made you the man you are."
"I'm not happy, Elena. Your women aren't doing it for me. I don't want them anymore," Christian told her bluntly.
"Honey, the women I train are perfect. Your problem is that you've stopped giving any of them a chance. You don't even take them out of the public eye of your little sex club any longer. When was the last time you took one of them to Escala? When was the last time you even stepped foot in your own playroom?"
"I don't want to take any of them there," Christian responded.
"You're losing your touch, Christian," Elena told him. "You need a refresher on what it means to be a Dom. Lucky for you, I am willing to sub for you myself, to retrain you on all the things you seem to have forgotten."
Christian stared at her in disbelief. "You?" he asked with no small amount of disdain. "Elena... I haven't wanted you in years. There's no way in hell I'm going to..."
"You're going to burn out, darling. You need to gain back your control before it's too late." She looked genuinely worried.
Christian looked at her confusedly. "Elena, I haven't lost my control," he told her. "GEH is stronger than ever. Everything in my life is in place, exactly where it should be. I'm just not attracted to those women. I don't want them."
"Christian, you don't see what other people see when they look at you. And besides, your tastes are so... specific... it's hard to find women who exactly meet your needs. You're being too picky, dear. And you go through women too quickly, hardly leaving me time to train any new ones."
"Then stop," Christian told her. "I'm done, Elena. I don't want any more subs from you."
She laughed at him again. "Of course, darling. When you change your mind, I'll have a sub or two ready for you."
That had basically been the end of their conversation, and after she'd left, Christian had gotten angrier and angrier at her words and her attitude. The audacity, to think that he would even consider dominating her, of all people. Sure, she'd helped him when he needed help, but he he'd only been a child back then, unable to help himself. Now, he was a man, and he didn't need her help, and truth be told, he hadn't needed her for a very long time. He determined going forward that he would never touch another submissive that Elena Lincoln introduced him to.
His thoughts turned to more pleasant things, to that pair of ocean blue eyes that had been haunting him for months. He'd been shocked the first time he'd seen Anastasia Steele's application for membership at Miles Down Under. Not only was Miles Down Under a BDSM club, and he could hardly believe that the uptight Ms. Steele could be into any kind of sexual kink, much less the things he was into, but also... according to her application, she was a submissive under the protection of Christian's best friend, BB, who was gay. There was no way BB was dominating her sexually.
Christian found out the first night Anastasia attended Down Under, the same night she was initiated as a member, that BB was acting as her protector and trainer. He was teaching her how to be a submissive, but there was nothing sexual about their relationship. Eventually, once it became clear that Anastasia needed it, BB did allow his submissive and husband Jose to attend to Anastasia's needs, including getting her off with a vibrator, but only after she'd been taken to their private room after her scene. Christian was aware from conversations with BB that it was happening, but he had never gotten to watch that, much to his regret. Although, truth be told, he probably would have lost it watching another man get her off, even if it was a gay man using a vibrator just to give her relief, not for any sexual fulfillment of his own. Christian wasn't jealous of Jose or BB, but he believed from the beginning that Anastasia belonged with him instead of either of them.
He'd expressed interest in her immediately. As far as her appearance went, she was exactly his type. Brunette hair, long and beautiful. Petite build with perky C-cup breasts that were just the right size. Fair skin that turned perfectly pink when she'd been flogged, which she seemed to enjoy each time BB did it. Probably due to her training, she had succeeded in finding her subspace pretty early on, and then she'd craved it after that first time, to the point of doing things to get BB to punish her. Yes, she was exactly Christian's type.
"Are you out of your mind?" BB had asked him when he'd first expressed interest in Anastasia. "You both hate each other. She doesn't have a fucking clue who you are at Down Under, but you don't have that excuse. Hell, Grey, it was only a few months ago that you thought she was the biggest bitch in Seattle. Have you forgotten our wedding, when you were my best man, and she was Jose's maid of honor? I thought you were going to kill each other. She's still the same person now that she was then."
"I don't hate her," Christian had insisted. "And all of that was before she became a member of an exclusive BDSM club. Our exclusive BDSM club. She's a submissive. She can be trained not to be a bitch."
"She was never a bitch," BB defended her. "You were wrong about her and treated her like shit. She was just reacting to that."
Christian decided not to argue. "Water under the bridge."
"Not only does she not know your identity at Down Under, but she also doesn't know that Bennington Steele is owned by GEH. She thinks I funded her start-up all by myself, which is why she insisted on using my name. How do you think she's going to feel when she finds out that you own her ass?"
Christian smirked as he replied, "When I own her ass, she won't give two shits about the financing of her publishing house. She'll be too focused on pleasing me to think about it."
BB snorted. "You're full of shit, and you know it. She's going to care. Her publishing house is everything to her, and she cares about every little detail. She's more meticulous than you are, and that's saying a fucking lot. You know she's going to go ape shit. That's why you insisted on keeping it a secret."
Christian responded, "I insisted on keeping it a secret because she was being a bitch. I knew, as soon as she found out that I was funding her, that she'd go from wanting to kick my ass to kissing my ass, and I didn't want to deal with another ass-kisser."
"She won't be kissing your ass. She thinks I've funded her, and she hasn't been kissing my ass."
Christian snorted, "No, she just asked you to train her to be a submissive. If I'd had any inkling that she was interested in the lifestyle, then I'd have told her everything from the beginning. Then, I could have been the Dom training her."
"Well, that's bullshit too," BB argued. "You don't have the patience to train a submissive. Besides, Anastasia's not interested in your brand of Dominance. She wants a long-term Master that will show her affection. You want a microwavable freezer food sub that you can just throw away when you're done. Hell, I'm not sure why you even need a flesh and blood woman when a blow-up doll would work just as well. You could beat the hell out of it, and you wouldn't have to deal with any emotions afterwards. You could fuck it to your heart's content, and it would never feel any of the emotions that you seem to detest. And you'd save a boatload of money on all the expensive gifts that you pass out like water."
"Fuck you, Bear," Christian muttered, but without any malice. He realized that there was some truth to B.B.'s argument. He respected BB and the relationship he had with his submissive. They were not only in a long-term Daddy Dom/little boy relationship, but they were also married. Christian knew of several similar couples at Down Under who had long-term relationships, but he had never considered such a thing. Elena had always said that love was for fools. But he didn't think BB was a fool, and he knew he loved Jose. Christian was beginning to wonder if perhaps Elena was the fool. And if so, what else had she been wrong about?
BB wasn't deterred when Christian told him to fuck off because he knew Christian wasn't angry if he called him Bear. He continued, "When you decide you want a real submissive, then come back to me, bro. But be honest with yourself. All you're interested in is disposable pussy. And that's not what Anastasia is. There's no way in hell I'm going to let you get near her unless you're willing to try the type of arrangement she's looking for."
BB's words hadn't offended Christian. They'd always been just that blunt with one another, since the beginning of their friendship long ago. But Christian hadn't been deterred; he hadn't given up trying to convince BB to let him talk to Anastasia and then let her decide if she wanted him as her Dom, on his terms. For months now, they'd been having this same argument. Christian had insisted that he didn't want Anastasia just for "disposable pussy," but B.B. had seen his track record with women, and he knew that the chances of Anastasia getting hurt by Christian were very great. He knew that Anastasia was sensitive and caring. She was a romantic at heart, and BDSM in and of itself was a danger to her for that reason. But he also knew that she could have her cake and eat it too, with the right Dom. None of the assholes at Down Under were good enough for her, including the Grey Wolf.
After Elena had pissed him off so much, Christian spent some time reflecting on his life as a Dominant. Everything he knew, he'd learned from his former Domme. And if she was wrong about love being for fools, what else had she been wrong about? He respected BB and his relationship with Jose. Christian wasn't interested in the type of relationship they had, not just the gay part of it, but also the Dom Daddy part of it. That just wasn't who he was, and he couldn't go there. But there was something very appealing about the bond they shared. Could Christian ever have that kind of bond with a submissive. He'd never even considered it, but as soon as he did, all he could see in his mind's eye was that pair of gorgeous ocean blue eyes.
A few nights later, he talked to BB again. He had been trying to get him to let him talk to Princess Rose for months now, but BB never considered it.
"What if I agree to her terms?" Christian asked.
BB just laughed in his face. "You don't even know what that is, Grey, and if you did, you'd run for the hills. You don't have it in you to be the type of Dom she needs."
"What are her terms," Christian pressed. He wasn't going to give up that easily.
"She wants TPE," BB answered. "She wants a six-month contract during which she'd wear your training collar. Hell, Grey, have any of your subs ever worn your training collar? Do you even have a training collar?"
"What else does she want?" Christian asked, ignoring BB's jab. He didn't need to answer. BB already knew he'd never had a sub wear a training collar.
"She wants a relationship, Christian," BB replied. "She wants her Dom to be open to the possibility from the beginning that at the end of the six-month term, they won't just renew it. They'll re-write it with a deeper commitment. Ultimately, she wants to be collared in a claiming ceremony. And you know as well as I do that in our world, that's as good as being married. It means she'd move in with you and share your life with you."
Christian didn't respond the way BB had expected him to. He didn't appear to be running for the hills. He looked… pensive. Like he was actually considering it.
BB pressed, "You realize, don't you, that if you did this, even the six-month training contract, you'd need to actually take her out in public. She wouldn't be your dirty little secret. She wants more than just the club and playroom. She wants a relationship. She wants intimacy. As far as the outside world is concerned, you'd need to treat her like a girlfriend. Something you've never had, my friend. Do you see now why this could never work?"
Christian didn't respond. He needed to take some time to think about it. But he was surprised to realize that the type of arrangement that BB was describing didn't sound as awful as he thought it would. Well, that was because he would only consider such an arrangement with Anastasia. She had gotten so deeply under his skin that he was willing to consider it.
But could he ever make something like that work? His best friend was convinced that he couldn't. But damn it, he was Christian Grey, and he could do absofuckinglutely anything he set his mind to.
The question was… how much did he want it? How much did he want her? Was she worth it? He needed to figure that out before taking any steps to make it happen.