A

Of course I’m joking…sort of. At least she knows I’m mad. Her plane should be taking off. How is she e-mailing?

From: Christian Grey

Subject: Joking

Date: May 30 2011 22:31

To: Anastasia Steele

How can you be e-mailing? Are you risking the life of everyone on board, including yourself, by using your BlackBerry? I think that contravenes one of the rules.

Christian Grey

Two-Palms-Twitching CEO,

Grey Enterprises Holdings, Inc.

And we know what happens if you contravene the rules, Miss Steele. I check the Sea-Tac website for flight departures; her plane has left. I won’t be hearing from her for a while. That thought, as well as her little e-mail stunt, has put me in a foul mood. Abandoning my work, I head into the kitchen and decide to pour myself a drink, tonight Armagnac.

Taylor pops his head around the entrance to the living room.

“Not now,” I bark.

“Very good, sir,” he says, and heads back to wherever he came from.

Don’t take your mood out on the staff, Grey.

Annoyed at myself, I walk toward the windows and stare out at the Seattle skyline. I wonder how she’s gotten under my skin, and why our relationship is not progressing in the direction I would like. I’m hoping that once she’s had a chance to reflect in Georgia, she’ll make the right decision. Won’t she?

Anxiety blooms in my chest. I take another slug of my drink and sit down at my piano to play.

TUESDAY, MAY 31, 2011

Mommy is gone. I don’t know where.

He’s here. I hear his boots. They are loud boots.

They have silver buckles. They stomp. Loud.

He stomps. And he shouts.

I am in Mommy’s closet.

Hiding.

He won’t hear me.

I can be quiet. Very quiet.

Quiet because I’m not here.

“You fucking bitch!” he shouts.

He shouts a lot.

“You fucking bitch!”

He shouts at Mommy.

He shouts at me.

He hits Mommy.

He hits me.

I hear the door close. He’s not here anymore.

And Mommy is gone, too.

I stay in the closet. In the dark. I’m very quiet.

I sit for a long time. A long, long, long time.

Where is Mommy?

There’s a whisper of dawn in the sky when I open my eyes. The radio alarm says 5:23. I’ve slept fitfully, plagued by unpleasant dreams, and I’m exhausted, but I decide to go for a run to wake myself up. Once I’m in sweats, I pick up my phone. There’s a text from Ana.

Arrived safely in Savannah. A :)

Good. She’s there, and safe. The thought pleases me and I quickly scan my e-mail. The subject of Ana’s latest message leaps out at me: “Do you like to scare me?”

No fucking way.

My scalp prickles and I sit down on the bed, scrolling through her words. She must have sent this during her layover in Atlanta, before she sent her text.

From: Anastasia Steele

Subject: Do you like to scare me?

Date: May 31 2011 06:52 EST

To: Christian Grey

You know how much I dislike you spending money on me. Yes, you’re very rich, but still it makes me uncomfortable, like you’re paying me for sex. However, I like traveling first class, it’s so much more civilized than coach. So thank you. I mean it—and I did enjoy the massage from Jean-Paul. He was very gay. I omitted that bit in my e-mail to you to wind you up, because I was annoyed with you, and I’m sorry about that.

But as usual you overreact. You can’t write things like that to me—bound and gagged in a crate. (Were you serious or was it a joke?) That scares me…you scare me…I am completely caught up in your spell, considering a lifestyle with you that I didn’t even know existed until last week, and then you write something like that and I want to run screaming into the hills. I won’t, of course, because I’d miss you. Really miss you. I want us to work, but I am terrified of the depth of feeling I have for you and the dark path you’re leading me down. What you are offering is erotic and sexy, and I’m curious, but I’m also scared you’ll hurt me—physically and emotionally. After three months you could say good-bye, and where will that leave me if you do? But then I suppose that risk is there in any relationship. This just isn’t the sort of relationship I ever envisaged having, especially as my first. It’s a huge leap of faith for me.

You were right when you said I didn’t have a submissive bone in my body…and I agree with you now. Having said that, I want to be with you, and if that’s what I have to do, I would like to try, but I think I’ll suck at it and end up black and blue—and I don’t relish that idea at all.

I am so happy that you have said that you will try more. I just need to think about what “more” means to me, and that’s one of the reasons why I wanted some distance. You dazzle me so much I find it very difficult to think clearly when we’re together.

They are calling my flight. I have to go.

More later.

Your Ana

She’s reprimanding me. Again. But she’s stunned me with her honesty. It’s illuminating. I read her e-mail again and again, and each time I pause at “Your Ana.”

My Ana.

She wants us to work.

She wants to be with me.

There’s hope, Grey.

I place my phone on my bedside, and decide I need that run, to clear my head so I can think about my response.

I take my usual route up Stewart to Westlake Avenue then around Denny Park a few times, Four Tet’s “She Just Likes to Fight” ringing in my ears.

Ana’s given me a great deal to process.

Paying her for sex?

Like a whore.

I’ve never thought of her that way. Just the idea makes me mad. Really fucking mad. I sprint once more around the park, my anger spurring me on. Why does she do this to herself? I’m rich, so what? She just needs to get used to that. I’m reminded of our conversation yesterday about the GEH jet. She wouldn’t take that offer.

At least she doesn’t want me for my money.

But does she want me at all?

She says I dazzle her. But boy, has she got that the wrong way around. She dazzles me in a way that I’ve never experienced, yet she’s flown across the country to get away from me.

How’s that supposed to make me feel?

She’s right. It is a dark path I’m leading her down, but one that is far more intimate than any vanilla relationship—or so I’ve seen. I only have to look at Elliot and his alarmingly casual approach to dating to see the difference.

And I’d never hurt her physically or emotionally—how can she think that? I just want to push her limits, see what she will and won’t do. Punish her when she colors outside the lines…yeah, it might hurt, but not beyond anything she can take. We can work up to what I’d like to do. We can take it slow.

And here’s the rub.

If she’s going to do what I want her to do, I’m going to have to reassure her and give her “more.” What that might be…I don’t yet know. I’ve taken her to meet my parents. That was more, surely. And that wasn’t so hard.

I take a slower jog around the park to think about what disturbs me most about her e-mail. It isn’t her fear, it’s that she’s terrified of the depth of feeling she has for me.

What does that mean?

That unfamiliar feeling surfaces in my chest as my lungs burn for air. It scares me. Scares me so much that I push myself harder, so that all I feel is the pain of exertion in my legs and in my chest and the cold sweat that trickles down my back.

Yeah. Don’t go there, Grey.

Stay in control.