Grey Clouds On The Horizon

Another Life, Another Man

Christian's POV

The security officer dragged me from the room, away from my ailing wife and unborn child, and threw me on the sidewalk just outside hospital grounds. I pulled myself from the ground and started back towards the building before Elliot got in my way, once again, from getting to Anastasia.

Good. You don't deserve Ana just like you didn't deserve me. Everything you touch turns to death.

"You need to go." Elliot pushed. "The police are already coming to get Ana's statement." his voice faltered.

My own brother, once fearful of me as a child, was afraid of me again.

"Elliot, you have to know I wouldn't do any of that to Anastasia." My voice was a plea. "There's really a simple explanation for all of this."

He shook his head with disbelief. "There's always going to be a simple explanation with you. Why you were out landscaping for Elena Lincoln until 3AM, why you couldn't make it to holidays, why you dropped out of Harvard... But not this time. You can't charm your way out of this. The most innocent girl I've ever met is up there in a hospital bed because of you and it's not even the first fucking time."

My fists balled up at my sides. "This time I can tell you exactly what happened. The whole and complete truth. Will you listen?"

He froze, tempted to seize a rare opportunity to see into my very private life. "Fine. Lay it on me."

In any other instance I would pray that he didn't believe me but this fear of me that he held was the same fear that kept me from my wife's bedside. After thirteen years of hiding it was time to let them see in my dark mind. My own brother would hate me but for Anastasia it was worth it.

"I didn't assault her," I clarified. This was it, the moment of truth. "But it did happen during sex. I'm a sexual sadist." using Dr Flynn's term seemed to be most fitting for the situation. "Ana was a willing participant. They've all been willing."

"All?" Elliot questioned, unable to move from where he was bolted to the sidewalk. "You've done this to more than one woman and this is the first time someone has bothered to call the police?"

I nodded. "Fifteen of them over the last seven years. Now sixteen, with Anastasia. I take submissive women into my care and dominate them for sexual gratification. I started when I was twenty-one and I've done it ever since. It's all consensual. There are contracts to protect everyone involved."

"No," He argued within himself. It was easy to watch the gears turn and bear witness to their nearly audible grind. He wondered if Emilia was one of them. Then Elliot decided that she'd never have been that stupid. Not asking the question aloud had saved him the burden of knowing.

I wasn't stupid. I was manipulated. I was a child hoisted into an adult world by someone who just wanted something out of me. I was a warm plain in your cold skyline world.

My mind flickered back to the night before with Anastasia, fighting images of Em along the way. The pleasure had been so intense and Ana had never given me any indication that she couldn't handle it. Every strike of the crop, drip of hot wax, clip of the restraints and tightening of my hands had elicited a moan of enjoyment, not defeat. Our orgasms had carried us into the heavens. But somehow, we flew too close to the sun.

"It was a mistake. That's not supposed to happen." I insisted. "Neither of us had been paying attention. I was stressed and Ana was having a good time. I let us get careless and I couldn't be more sorry for that but I did not do this with malice."

Elliot didn't respond.

"Believe me, I'm your brother!" I yelled, attracting unwanted attention from some nurses out for a smoke break.

His head snapped up and his eyes met mine. "If I go inside and ask Ana right now, will she tell me the exact same thing?"

I sighed "Of course. Down to the the color of the wax. She can tell you all of it."

His head rocked from side to side in dazed confusion then I watched as he made a decision. "Alright, show me where this happens. Show me the candles and whips and chains and I'll believe you. Take me there now before the cops arrest you."

Jason drove us through the darkening and wet Seattle streets. Elliot stared at the headrest in front of them, nostrils flared and fuming, and I felt a pit digging itself in my stomach. If I was so reluctant to show my dark appetites to those in the light wasn't that enough proof that I was evil?

Yes, Mr Grey.

Emilia was right. Or, my memory of her was. And the white book that I kept in my briefcase was right as well. I picked it up, unlocked the hard shell and pulled it out.

From Photo to 4K by Emilia Stewart

Inside the front cover was a short inscription written by her own hand.

At least my battle scars will show I soldiered on. I cannot say the same for yours as that is yours to decide.

I turned it over in my hands a few times and handed it to Elliot. "Have you read it? She sent it to me last year and I've kept it on me to squeeze a page on every once in a while. Read most of it on flights. She did a great job."

He turned to me and his eyes grew wide while a smug look set into his jawline. "Have I read it?"

I blinked a couple of times. "Yes, have you read it? It's Emilia's book. She sent it to me when it published so we're clearly not in that bad of standing at all."

"Not only did I read this book." Elliot dropped it on the empty seat between us. "But I read the six drafts that came before it. I was there are the grand reveal of the cover art and her first excerpt reading. I don't even... nevermind. Just nevermind."

I swallowed hard. I'd known that they were still speaking but their closeness I hadn't understood. Then, by the look on my brothers eyes, I knew what it was. "Elliot, I need you to be honest with me."

He rolled his eyes. "I'm not the dishonest one but okay. Fine. Shoot."

"Did you... were you... I mean, just thought." I stumbled over my words like the coward Emilia had always made me into. Even in her submission the attempt at pleasing her, intellectually as well as sexually, had taken all of my self confidence. "Have you and Emilia ever slept together?"

Don't ask questions you already know the answer to. Knowledge is strength and inquiry is weakness. Never let the enemy see that you're anything other than ten steps ahead of them.

It took a few moments of mind numbing silence before Elliott began to laugh to himself. "Brother, if I would have so much as kissed that girl I would have never let her go. So no, I haven't. I'm marrying Kate and I'm happy about that. Emmy was from a different time almost. Don't think I'm that man anymore."

Are you that man, Mr Grey? The kind that would take me over and over again with no hesitation in any way I would be yours? A friend, a sister, a colleague, a confidant, a lover...

I shook my head to dispel the visions of what would never be. Em would never meet me for coffee to catch up or go over proposals with me at GEH. I was just a pervert that she had known in another life. Not significant or important. In fact, I likely rarely crossed her mind.

"We're here, Mr Grey." Taylor's gruff voice interrupted my self loathing. I reached for the door handle and pulled before I felt a hand on my shoulder.

"Don't." Elliot said, with a look of brotherly protectiveness in his eyes. "I don't want to see that. But if anyone asks, I did. And everything you said is true. I just have to trust that it was. Okay?"

Graduitide filled me and I closed the door. "Thank you, Lelliott."