Work Text
prologue
My inner goddess lies rapt in a fur wrap, like a Renoir painting.My subconscious scowls over her horn-rimmed spectacles and dips her paintbrush in water. My inner goddess is dancing in the rain.My subconscious is reminding me that it’s never too early to open a retirement fund. My inner goddess believes in miracles.My subconscious says that the average 4.5-ounce pina colada contains 245 calories and 31.5 grams of sugar. My inner goddess is doing all the housework naked except for a string of pearls, an apron, and fuck-me heels, but she isn’t actually doing any of the housework. She is slow-motion-posing like moving through jello.My subconscious reads aloud from Tess of the D’Urbervilles. My inner goddess is not the time signature.My subconscious sees an owl. My inner goddess:~anastasiarosesteele$2011-05-11 15:18:17.136pkgutil[2417:903]Packagekit***Missing bundle identifier:/Psyche/Superego/subconscious.pkg.My subconscious:~anastasiarosesteele$2011-05-11 15:35:17.136pkgutil[2417:903]Packagekit***Missing bundle identifier:/Psyche/Id/innergoddess.pkg. ***The local time in St. James Barbados is 1:48 am. The leggy blonde lies sprawled beside a young man, both of them naked and content in sleep. Somewhere, a slightly tinny rendition of The Imperial March starts to play.The blonde jerks awake. She snatches her phone from the bedside table and angles her body away from the young man. Hoarsely: “Yes.”“She left me.”The blonde’s mouth falls open.“What?”The voice on the other end is coldly furious. “She thinks she’s gone home. She thinks she’s at her job.”The blonde runs a hand through her hair, agitated. "Wait, okay, back up Mr. Grey. You sure you didn't--give her a command that would've triggered that kind of response?"Christian Grey snorts."Hardly," he says, still in cold, controlled tones. "This is on you, Kavanagh.""How long has she been gone?"Clipped: "Five days. She's at your apartment."Katherine Kavanagh sighs, eyes narrowing. "I can't exactly troubleshoot from here, sir," she murmurs into the phone, as Elliot shifts sleepily on the bed.“Well, fortunately for you, you won't have to: You are going to pack your fucking sarong and take the first flight back to Seattle." Christian Grey means business most of the time; now, the command is unmistakable.And of course, whoever has the gold makes the rules."And put a call in to Atlanta while you're at it," Grey hisses. "Tell Wilks your team fucked up again.”
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Anastasia Rose Steele is fairly certain this is normal.In the books she remembers, heroines go consumptive with grief. Love is a sickness—on the moors, in vast mansions, on an altar at Stonehenge, it’s as corrosive as childbirth. Nobody eats. Nobody sleeps.So she doesn’t eat and she doesn’t sleep.She spends long Seattle nights staring out the window of the apartment she shares with Kate. The sky is usually full of purple clouds. Every morning she walks to work, the streets near Pike Place Market reminding her of old London: fog and cobblestones. She is learning to subsist on lattes and Diet Coke.Sometimes men speak to her. With their guttural tones and gray clothes, they frighten her. They’re not Christian.(Christian frightens her too, but Christian is … exciting. Compelling. He’s glorious. His cadences are so smooth—even when he’s angry. Even when he’s furious.In Kate’s plum dress, Ana shivers.) When Christian begins to send her emails, this seems fairly normal too. They’re just lucky they live in the modern era, when love’s regretful missives are delivered instantaneously. No need to miss the fateful telegram and jump into the river.But maybe a good cold shower is just what you need, her subconscious declares archly.“Oh, shut up,” Ana mutters, and makes another photocopy. Christian sends her flowers. Ana puts them in a vase, her inner goddess tangoing across the kitchen floor. Christian says he wants her back. Her inner goddess holds up three signs, all proclaiming 10!!Christian says he’s coming to take her home.Ana doesn’t know what “home” means—she certainly doesn’t have a home with him, hasn’t he already replaced her with a new submissive? But even through the wrenching, jealous pain of that thought … she loves him. She will always love him.(You’re pathetic, sighs her subconscious, and picks up Middlemarch.) On Friday, her office dresses down and goes to a bar down the street. As Ana leaves the building that houses SIP, a soft voice calls to her, “Miss Steele?”Ana turns.Standing near her on the street is a thin, thin girl with a sad, empty face. Her hair is short and brown. Everything seems to hang limply on her, including a designer trench coat that Ana’s internal referents tell her is Michael Kors.When she looks at the girl, Ana feels a jolt of recognition.“Can I help you?” she says.The girl gives her a wan smile. Her eyes are—so strange. They seem to see out, they have a light, bourbon color, but …The girl says sadly, “What do you have that I don’t have?”Ana frowns. “I—“The girl smiles again, looking at her with those flat eyes. What’s wrong with her? She looks poorly fed. (Ana knows she herself looks poorly fed.)“You want to know a secret?” she says, still smiling.She holds up her wrist, and Ana realizes what it is that’s so wrong with her eyes.They see out, but there’s no light in them.There’s no life in them.There is a dirty bandage on the girl’s wrist. Tenderly, she starts to unwrap it, murmuring, “You can cut us and we bleed … but we don’t bleed all the way down.”Sticking out of her wrist, at an awkward angle that should mean bone, Ana sees a twist of metal wire.She screams.