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I paced the length of the great glass wall in my office. Despite being swamped with work, I couldn’t focus on anything. Some journalism student was coming to interview me in just a few minutes and this was giving me serious anxiety.You wouldn’t believe it just by looking at me, but I was deeply insecure. Luckily, nature had given me the frame of a six-foot Calvin Klein model along with cheek dimples to compensate for my lack of self-confidence. Thanks to my deep-set, steel blue eyes, people also believed me to be a lot more commanding than I really was. All that to say, if I had risen to be the CEO of a billion dollars telecommunication company, it was both a result of hard-work and a genetic baggage that allowed me to fool everyone into thinking I had leadership.I repressed a start when the door was flung open by Christine, my secretary. She announced, “Ms. Kavanagh is here for your interview.”A young woman who shared a striking resemblance with the proverbial deer caught in headlights took a few shy steps in my office. Christine considered her job done and closed the door behind her.I squared my shoulders and went to greet the interviewer. She had long, auburn hair with a heavy fringe and looked to me like the typical wallflower. “Hello, Ms. Kavan…”The heel of her shoe got caught in the carpet and she stumbled. I reached out by reflex to prevent her from hitting the floor face first. I caught her by the waist and she grasped my arm. After an uncomfortable moment of silence, during which she seemed to think I should have a trapdoor hidden somewhere for cases like these, I tried again, “Ms. Kavanagh… Are you alright?”She sprang up from my arms. “Christian Grey! I’m Anastasia Steele. Ms. Kavanagh has the flue, so she asked me to fill in.”Her hands smoothed her skirt back into place. “Oh, hum…” Damn it, get a grip, Christian! I cleared my throat with a manly cough. “I see. So you’re studying journalism as well?”“No, English literature. Kate’s my roommate.”I was a little taken aback by this turn of event. This situation seemed very unprofessional to me, but I guess at this point there was little I could do but roll with it. I walked to my desk and gestured toward a chair, “Please, have a seat Ms. Steele.”She dropped on a chair and I was torn a moment between taking my own seat or just leaning against my desk casually. I was afraid that too much formality would intimidate Ms. Steele, and she was already flustered enough, so I opted for the second option.“Ready?” she said.“Whenever you are.” And let this be over with quickly.“Erm… So this is for the special graduation issue of the student newspaper.”She’d been making a weird face ever since she got in and I was afraid she might be a little sick. Things like the flu travel easily from roommate to roommate, after all. I crossed my arms in discomfort, feeling my shirt tighten around shoulder muscles, and the weird face intensified. That’s when I understood. She was attracted to me. Shit.“Yes, I’m giving the commencement address at the ceremony,” I commented. Another engagement which had been the bane of my existence lately.
“Really? I mean… right, of course.” She fumbled through her notes and read a question directly from a piece of paper. “You are very young to have amassed an empire. To what do you owe…”The words were handwritten and she struggled to read the rest, so I helped, “… my success?”“Hum… yes!”"Really?”She re-read the question again and confirmed, “Yeah…”This was a tough question. How do you define success anyway? The more I thought about it, the less I was sure I had ever achieved success. “I think I’m a people person and I’m good at keeping everyone motivated so that they can give their best work.”“Maybe you’re just lucky.”“I don’t think so,” I retorted, remembering my own insecurities. “I mean, yes, a little, but I’m also hard working and I’m good at bringing together people with various talents.”She’d been fumbling through her handbag for about thirty seconds and I realised she didn’t have a pen. I took one from my desk and handed it to her. She scribbled a few words and went on with the next question. “Are you a control freak?”“I guess you could say I like being in control in most aspects of my life.”“Ok… hum… your company is involved primarily in telecommunications, yet…”My mind drifted as she droned on. I wondered whether I should close my jacket. Could she see my six-pack through my shirt? Maybe I should have sat down after all.“… Feeding the world’s poor? It’s smart business,” she finished half an hour later.I blinked a few times. “Right.”“I don’t know… I guess I’m wondering if your heart might be bigger than you want to let on?”Did that girl have some mind reading ability? I smiled dismissively, “Some people say I don’t have a heart.”“Why?”“Because they know me well.”Some strange stuff had been happening between my pen and her mouth. It definitely made me uncomfortable. It had started out as a mere tapping against her lips, and now she was full-on French-kissing it."Do you have any interest outside of work?”“I enjoy being physical… I mean, physical activity.” What?“You’re unmarried, you were adopted at age four…”We were digging into more personal subjects and I didn’t like where this was going. She looked up at me to corroborate her statements. I brushed them off, “That’s a matter of public record.” Whatever that meant.“I’m sorry, I didn’t…” She looked down at her paper again and went on to the next question, “Are you gay?”My heart skipped a beat. What kind of question was that? The truth was, yes, I was gay, but I was extremely careful not to out myself. After working so hard to build my empire, as she called it, I realised my authority rested on a very fragile power game between myself, my employees, and my competitors. Our society might overall be a better place for LGBTQ people nowadays, but I couldn’t predict what impact my coming out would have on my status. In my circles, there were bigoted psychopaths everywhere and they would not hesitate to press any buttons to see me fall.Don’t get me wrong, this had been a source of constant frustration between Jose, my boyfriend, and me. I couldn’t blame him. He felt I was putting my career before him, and he was right.Still, every once in a while, I considered that I could become a good role-model for young people if I decided to make a public coming out. Become the business equivalent of Ellen DeGeneres. One day, maybe. But in my own time.“Sorry, it was written here, let’s move on,” Ms. Steele said after a silence passed.“No, no. I’m not gay.” I died inside.After that, she kept asking more inane questions while sucking on my pen, but I didn’t even care anymore. She could keep it, I was never touching it again anyway. All I could think of was that I was going to see Jose tonight and I didn’t know how I was supposed to face him after denying I was gay.
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Jose lived in Pullman, almost two hours by car away from Seattle. We routinely drove the distance to see each other during week-ends and holidays. Thanks to a business trip in his area, I would get to spend more time with him this week.It was already past 10pm by the time I made it to his place, but I knew he would have waited to eat dinner with me. My stomach knotted as I stepped out of my Porsche in the garage of his building.Jose was a photography major and therefore his place was a lot more modest than mine. I had offered to help him financially several times before, but he’d always refused. His pride was one of the things that annoyed me, and yet made me love him even more at the same time.He greeted me with a kiss on the lips as soon as I crossed his doorstep. At the end of a day spent pretending to be someone I wasn’t, it was a nice relief to be able to let it all go in his arms. He was a couple of inches shorter than me, but he was strong and warm and his presence grounded me.He pulled us apart and he seemed even happier than usual. His smile made me smile in return. “What’s up?” I asked.“You know that exhibition at Portland’s next month? They’ve selected my photographs!”“That’s awesome, congratulations!”Despite the happy news, his smile clouded over, and I thought I knew the reason. “I would like it if you could be there for the vernissage,” he said.“You know I would like nothing more than to be there but…”“What are you scared of? I’m not asking you to hold my hand in public, just to be there.”“People are going to wonder why I’m there.”“So what? You’re Christian Grey, the great philanthrope. You do what you want.”I chuckled and he kissed me again. I held him closer to me and thought I could do without dinner tonight. Jose would never skip a meal though, “Hey, I re-heated some mac and cheese to celebrate. Let’s eat first.”We sat at the small kitchen table. While we ate quietly, I realised that leftover mac and cheese with Jose beat 100-dollars-per-pound Kobe beef any day of the week. Of course, eating Kobe beef with Jose might be something to try.“How was your interview?” he asked.“As usual. Always the same questions.”He smirked. “Ana did your interview, right?”I almost spat out my food. “You know Anastasia Steele?”“She’s a good friend of mine. She’s a sweet girl.”Good thing I hadn’t given him my opinion of her, then.“Are you done eating?” Jose asked.Without asking for an answer, he walked around the table and straddled my laps. “You look tired,” he added. Soon, I felt his soft breath on the side of my neck. His hips grinding against mine made me forget the trials of the day. I was ready for bed.
The next day, I passed by Clayton’s on my way to a meeting. Jose sometimes needed strange equipment for the set up of his photographs and since I would be close, I offered to stop by the hardware store. This was a secret strategy of mine to pay for some of his stuff in secret. I would inadvertently lose the bill and then it would be impossible to know how much he owed me.Yesterday’s anguish had died down a little. I shouldn’t let the questions of a student journalist bother me to that extent. I walked through the aisles of nails, plywood boards, nuts and bolts, checking the list on my phone for the items to buy. Imagine my surprise when, coming from another aisle, I recognised the voice of my interviewer. A man was asking for her help from back store, and she yelled back, “I’ll be right there!”Great. Well, sorry Jose, but she’s your friend, not mine, I thought. It was time for me to make a stealthy exit before she saw me. I turned around toward the door and I almost gasped when I ended up face to face with Ms. Steele. I had to use every ounce of self-control in my body not to throw my phone at her in self-defence. She was every bit as surprised as I was. I regained my cool and said, “I thought I heard your voice.”“What the…”“What a pleasant surprise, Ms. Steele.” The pen-eating monster ogled at me as though I was some renaissance painting. My silk Hermes tie suddenly felt too tight.“Just Ana is fine,” she replied. “Are you…”“Right, I need to pick up a few things.”“I can help you.”“No, no, I’m sure…”“What do you need?”“I’m fine… Ok, hum, do you have cable ties?”“Yes, I can show you?”“Sure, thanks, Ms. Steele.”She walked in front of me and looked back to correct me, “It’s Ana.” She was completely oblivious of my attempt to keep some respectful distance between us.I
have to say, she was really helpful in finding all the items for me. Without her, I could easily have spent one hour looking for everything, and then I might have ended up picking all the wrong stuff.We headed toward the cash register and she summarized, “Masking tape, rope, cable ties… Are you a serial killer?”I recognised that her comment was a joke, so I smirked in response, “Not today.”“Do you need anything else?”I wondered whether Jose might actually need something else. He often came back from his sets telling me he just wished he’d thought of purchasing that missing item that would have saved the day. But I couldn’t think of anything. “What would you recommend?”"Coveralls to protect your clothes?”I thought of Jose wearing coveralls and I couldn’t help grinning at the thought. “Or I could just take all my clothes off.”The look she gave me woke me up from my daydream. Shit, if I kept spurting out creepy stuff like that, she would definitely get the wrong idea.“Ok, no clothes… I mean, no coveralls,” she stuttered.I slapped myself mentally. “I guess that’s it, then.”She entered the items and their prices in the computer to calculate the bill. “Thank you for emailing the rest of the interview, by the way. Kate was thrilled.”“Oh, not at all. I hope she’s feeling better.”“She is. She’s just having trouble finding an original photo of you.”Her comment sounded like an indirect request for another favour. “If she’d like an original, I’m around tomorrow,” I proposed.“You’d be willing to do that?”“Yeah.”A blonde, sturdy guy appeared beside her behind the counter. “Do you want me to bag for you, Ana?”“No, thanks Paul,” Ms. Steele replied.Paul looked familiar. By the way he stared back at me, I could tell I looked familiar to him as well and it dawned on me that we’d met before at a bar in the Village. When I was younger, I wasn’t as careful about keeping my sexual orientation a secret and I would go out a lot more often. Eventually, though, I became more famous and people there started recognising me, so I decided I should stop. Anyway, I was much too busy for that.I looked away from Paul and back at Ms. Steele. “I’m staying at the Heathman. I’ll be there until 10.”“I’ll come over early for the photo then.”She’ll come over? I thought Kate was feeling better, why couldn’t she make it? I cursed myself for getting into another awkward commitment with this clutz.“Thanks for doing this, Mr. Grey.”“I’m happy to help.” As if.
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So, Ms. Steele did make it to my hotel room the next morning, along with Kate. It made me wonder, considering Kate could make it, what the hell was Ms. Steele doing here?Kate looked a lot more like the stereotypical journalist student I imagined. Pretty, extraverted and nosy. She invaded the place with her equipment and put up some white back drop in the living room. I stood in the middle of all that chaos, my hair gelled, my face powdered and the buttons of my collar undone. They debated at length whether I should
wear my vest. Eventually, they decided to
keep it on, but they instructed me to hold it open by putting my hands in my pockets. Something about keeping my crotch on display.Whatever, if that was all it took to make it go faster. Still, there seemed to be something missing. Kate looked at the time on her phone, tapped her foot impatiently and finally told me, “Sorry, we’re still waiting for the photographer.” Then, addressing Ms. Steele, “Let me call Jose.”My heart jumped. Jose? Was Jose going to take my photograph? He’d said nothing about it when I’d seen him last night. Since he was good friends with Ms. Steele, it made sense that she might ask him last minute requests, but still.As soon as Kate hit his contact, the door opened and Jose passed the doorway. “Sorry, I’m late,” he said.He put his heavy suitcase on the floor, and Kate introduced us. “Mr. Grey, this is Jose, the photographer.”Jose held out his hand. Pretending that we were meeting for the first time was the most awkward thing in the world. Something in his expression told me he resented me for putting him in such a situation. “Mr. Grey, nice to meet you.”He was very professional. So professional, I almost thought this was some twin brother I was actually meeting for the first time.Five minutes later, Jose and I were busy with the photoshoot, while Kate and Ms. Steele discussed in the living room. When the two girls stopped paying attention to us, Jose came closer to me and brushed a few strands of hair away from my face. His stance remained professional, but his fingertips were soft. “You told her you’re not gay,” he whispered. The hurt in his voice broke my heart.“She took me by surprise. I panicked. What did you want me to say?” I murmured back.He picked an imaginary lint from my shoulder. “You could have refused to answer. This was none of her business.”“Refusing to answer would have been telling.”He arranged my collar and straightened my tie as though he wanted to strangle me with it. “So what? You lied about yourself. You lied about us.”His voice broke off and he looked away. His hand slid down my chest. For one moment, I thought I should let it all go to hell and pull him in my arms. This little lie had already gone too far.“How about we try a few with a smile?” Kate interjected from the living room.Jose nodded and walked away from me.“Or maybe not,” Kate added, noticing my glum expression.She turned back to Ms. Steele and told her in a tone she meant as a whisper, but that still reached my ears very clearly, “You do realise he hasn’t stopped looking at you?”I rolled my eyes. Ms. Steele wore a tacky red skirt with flower patterns. Even though it almost made me throw up in my mouth, I couldn’t help staring at it from time to time. I understood her friend had mistaken the nature of my interest.Once it was over, I was determined to rectify a few points. I couldn’t let the situation degenerate even further. While Jose was busy putting away his material, I went up to Ms. Steele. I ignored the wink Kate sent in her direction and said,
“Would you like to have some coffee?”Ms. Steele wavered on the spot. Kate nudged her friend with her elbow, and a loud clank told me Jose was blowing off steam on his expensive equipment.
We went out and sat in a coffee shop not too far from my hotel. I had a meeting in an hour, so we had to be quick. We both got coffee, and Ms. Steele decided to have a muffin with it. I paid for both of us, thinking that since I was about to ask her for a favour, I should get her on my good side as much as possible.“So, you know Jose well?” I started out. “I noticed how he was smiling at you… and stuff.”Her eyes grew wide. “Oh… Yeah. I mean, he’s a good friend. Like family. Definitely not my boyfriend.” She giggled, with all the charm of a dying lawn mower.I wanted to get on to the meat of the subject right away, but she blushed and fumbled with her food. “You seem nervous,” I noted.“I find you intimidating.”I was doing it again, despite myself. The whole alpha-male thing. She was falling for it. In my impatience, I looked at my Rolex wrist watch. Time was running out, and she’d barely touched her food. “You should, erm… eat,” I pressed.“You’re pretty high-handed as well.”Was I being high-handed?For a reason I can’t understand, she started talking about her family. I felt bad for interrupting, so I let her drone on and on for a while. I nodded and asked a few polite questions to show I was listening, until I realised with horror that she thought this was some sort of date, and she was doing the get-to-know-you-better thing. I tried to keep my cool, searching for a segue into the subject I needed to broach.“The photo shoot went well, right?” she finally said.This was it. My chance to talk about it. “Actually, can I ask you something about the interview?”“Sure.” She waited for me to go on, but I was hopelessly stalled. What was I supposed to say? Oh, hey, you know that bit about me not being gay? Can you scratch that? Not that I’m gay… Not that I’m not not-gay either. Just, you know…What was I scared of? She seemed like a nice girl, I’m sure she wouldn’t go babbling to everybody about it. Only to Kate. And then, Kate would babble to everyone she knew.I shook my head. “I’m sorry, I can’t.”“What?”“I’ll walk you out.”I got up and she did the same. “Do you have a girlfriend? Is that it?”The world must have been a confusing place for Ms. Steele. She kept getting it all wrong. “I don’t do the girlfriend thing.”“What does that even mean.”Indeed. I wasn’t sure myself what message I wanted to send her with those words. I shrugged it off and we walked out.Before we parted, I needed to at least stop her from misinterpreting my behaviour. I stood facing her on the sidewalk, my features set in what I knew other people always considered a businesslike expression. “I’m not the man for you. You should steer clear of me.” That sounded a bit creepy, but whatever. As long as it stopped her from going after me.She was surprised by my sudden change in tone. “Oh. I see. Goodbye then, Mr. Grey.”Good. I knew she was a reasonable girl, deep down.
I went back to Jose’s place after an endless afternoon of meetings. I usually entered without knocking, but this time he’d locked the door. I knew he must have been there, though.
I tapped my finger on the wood, “Jose, it’s me.”
“Who?” his voice replied from inside.
“I’m sorry.”
“About what?”
I sighed. “Can you let me in?”
The floor creaked under his footsteps. The door opened, revealing an annoyed Jose. “Oh, it’s you,” he said in mock detachment.
I pushed past him and paced in the hallway. “Ana told you about the interview?”
Jose closed the door and said, “She’s my friend, remember? Anyway, I would have read it in the student newspaper.”
I passed my hand over my face. “I’m sorry. I never thought it would affect you.”
“What am I to you, just some toy? You’ll toss me out the second I get in your way?”
Tears welled up in his eyes. Because of me, as was too often the case. I approached him and kneaded his shoulders to comfort him. “How do you think I feel,” he continued, “every time someone asks me whether there’s someone in my life and I have to lie about you? My parents are pestering me to meet my secret boyfriend. I want to build my life with you, but you’re making it so damn difficult.”
I pulled him against me and he sobbed quietly on my shoulder. “I told you I want to come out soon,” I soothed, “but I can’t rush things. It’s already hard enough to be taken seriously because I’m so young…”
“You think people will take you less seriously because you’re gay?”
This was the harsh truth. But there was a harsher truth. “I’m also scared of what my parents will think.”
He held me tighter. Jose was aware of my family situation. My adoptive parents were very religious and thought that homosexuality was a sin. I’d seen one of my friends being sent to a conversion camp when I was in high school. I shouldn’t have been afraid of what they could do to me if they knew, but I was. The feeling that their love was conditional on my good behaviour plagued me, and I desperately needed to be loved. I needed to please, to be admired by everyone. This was part of the sad truth I kept denying.
“You built a whole empire out of nothing. Can’t they cut you some loose?” Jose whispered.
He leaned against the wall behind him. Our parted lips met in a heat fed by our awareness that all this could be over way too soon. I pressed myself against him, felt his need against mine. I fumbled to unbutton his jeans and pulled them down. Kneeling on the floor, I took him in my mouth, gently at first, until his fingers in my hair softly urged me to increase my pace. His scent, his taste, his warmth and the sound of his moans, all of these, at that moment… made me the richest man in the world.
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Soon, the stress of finals made Jose forget a little about our argument. Knowing he was hard at work in his studies made me realise he was in fact younger than me. Not a lot younger, but still. In a way, I knew he needed my support and that I was failing. Something in his attitude made me feel that his trust in me had been damaged.Once his exams were over, I drove over to Pullman again to spend the week-end with him. Even though I arrived on Friday night, because of his end of the year party, I would only be able to see him on Saturday. I retired to the suite I usually booked at the Heathman and spent the evening at my laptop, hoping Jose wouldn’t need to sleep in too much in the morning so that we could at least have brunch together.I
was ready to call it a day and go to bed when my phone lit up on the coffee table in the living room. The name displayed on the screen almost gave me a heart attack. That pest, Ms. Steele, was after me again. Did she know I was in Pullman? She would be at the party with Jose right now. Had he leaked out that I was in town? I was determined to ignore her call. However, the ringing wouldn’t stop and I started being afraid that Ms. Steele might be in trouble right now. What if, in a moment of panic, she’d simply clicked on any number in her contact list, hoping someone would answer? Even if she was the most obnoxious woman in the world, I couldn’t refuse her my help.I picked up. “Ms. Steele?”“It’s Anastasia,” she corrected with a muffled giggle. I sighed. She sounded just fine. Completely smashed, but fine.“Thanks for the books,” she said, “but I don’t really need them, so I’ll send them back.”I had no idea what books she was talking about. I gathered that someone had sent her books that she thought were from me. She slurred her words pretty heavily, so I struggled to understand exactly was she was talking about.“Where are you now?” I asked, thinking I might as well check if she was alright before I hung up on her.“Just in line for the toilet. I really… really need to pee.” Another muffled giggle.“I see. You’ve been drinking?”She pff’ed loudly into her phone. “Yeah, Mr. Fancy Pants.”“Maybe it’s time to go home?”“You’re sooo b… bossy,” she declared. What the hell, it was barely 11pm and she was so drunk she struggled with two-syllable words. “I’m feeling really sick,” she muttered.There was a thud on her end, which made me think she’d hit the wall. “I had only two drinks,” she continued, “but it was super strong.”Only two drinks? She seemed light-weight, but still. “What did you get?”“I don’t know… something pink, and then something blue. The blue one had a weird taste. I didn’t like it, but some guy I don’t know got it for me.”Shit. My heart pounded in my chest. “Anastasia, are your friends around?”
“So we’re on a first name thing now?”“I’m serious. Go find them.”“I need to…” She sounded scared. “I gotta go.”“Ana!”It was too late. She’d already hung up. I let out a few curses and called Jose. He would be at the party, he could make sure she was fine.I paced around my hotel room in my anguish. Jose wouldn’t pick up. Either the music was too loud, or he still resented me for that stupid interview.Well, what could I do? I stormed out of the suite, down to the garage and took my Porsche. I drove as fast as I could in the busy streets until I reached the bar where Jose had told me they would spend the night. I parked in some place I didn’t think was meant as a parking slot, and I was sure I would be getting a ticket later on but it didn’t matter. There was no time to roam around looking for a better spot.The bar was pretty crowded. I scanned the place for traces of Anastasia or Jose… or that journalism student. Kate. They were nowhere to be found and I started fearing for the worst. I had a bad feeling about that whole situation.I tried to calm down and saw there was a terrace at the back. Maybe they had gone out to get away from the stuffy air of the bar. I headed over to the open sliding door
and was relieved to see that Anastasia
and Jose. She was having trouble standing on her own and Jose held her by the waist. She laced her arms around his neck and said something close to his ear which threw him off a bit.Whatever, in such a state, she wasn’t responsible for what she did or said. I was just relieved that she wasn’t in any immediate danger.When I crossed the threshold to the terrace. Jose glanced at me from the corner of his eye, and I’m damned if that piece of shit didn’t grin and lean in to kiss Anastasia on the mouth.What the hell was he doing? My blood’s temperature rose to boiling point. I wrenched Jose away from Anastasia and then proceeded to send a heartfelt punch right in his face.“What the hell are you doing?” Jose yelled at me, holding his cheek.“You’re the one asking! What were you kissing her for?” I yelled back.He straightened up and looked me dead in the eyes, “She asked me to, I didn’t force her!”I stood there, unable to react. There was a challenge in the way he looked at me. “Something wrong with that, Mr. Grey?” he teased.“Jose…”He turned around and walked away. I followed him with my gaze and was about to do the same with my legs, when the sound of someone throwing up behind me tore me from my daze. I shook my head and bent over to help Anastasia finish her business by holding her hair up while everybody out on the terrace stared at us.