Fifty Shades of War

"You wish," Alena tittered. "Have you told your dear Ana how you hit on me this morning when you didn't know who I was? How you wanted to buy me and a few moments of my affections, did you tell her?"

"When I get out of these chains..."

"You'll, what, Mr. Grey? Should I chose to let you out of these chains, that is, of course, what will you do, little boy?" Alena ran her index finger over his chin, down his throat, and then all the way from his neck to the course patch of rusty hair between his legs. Grabbing a harsh hold of his hairy balls, she continued to look in his gray eyes and talk in a sweetly condescending tone, "Do you know what I've seen, Mr. Grey? Do you have any idea of the atrocities I've witnessed?" She gave his balls a little squeeze so she could watch him wince. "Do you know what it's like to watch a group of full grown men crawl all over a seven year-old girl in a frenzy so heated it rivals Vesuvius? To hear her cry out for a mother who's being raped in front of her, stretching her hand out for her little girl, knowing there's nothing she can do to stop the men from fucking the child to death?" Alena stopped and watched the horror creep into his eyes. "Do you know what it is to have to stand by and watch as a group of children, who should be innocent, and sweet, off playing without a care in the world are gathered into the midst of rotted refugee camp to have their arms chopped off by rusty blood soaked machetes? To listen to them beg and plead then shriek in absolute agony when the blade comes down?"

Grey wanted to argue, wanted to tell her that she couldn't compare pain that way, but the gleam in her eyes and the soft tone of her cold voice echoed throughout his body making it break out in goose bumps and telling him she spoke nothing but the bald truth of the things she had seen. He began to feel ashamed knowing the silver-haired woman wouldn't be satisfied until he was riddled with guilt but still so far away from that point there was a painful road ahead of him. "Fuck you," he spat in her face, "bitch!"

"You wish," she cooed again and called a heated branding iron to her hand. "Do you know what it is to be branded like cattle, Mr. Grey? I see your little scars from what...less than a full pack of cigarettes...not to be little you, of course," she tilted the branding iron toward the tender balls in her hand bringing it down slowly so that he didn't miss a second of the searing heat about to descend on him. Holding it over his twitching member, she looked at him again, "Do you know the strangest thing, Mr. Grey? None of those children turned into homicidal maniacs...like you. In fact, one of them, Sha'Quanda Neyrue, went on to lead her people from the refugee camp where she grew up and was terrorized on a daily basis by a gang of thugs to a prosperous community of peaceful people. Do you know how she did it?" Alena didn't wait for Grey to answer, "She didn't sit around feeling sorry for herself like you, Mr. Grey. That seven year-old girl, took all of that anger, that frustration, that agony, and turned into a determination so strong not even the toughest warlords could stand against her."

The branding iron was so close to his cock he thought it would start to burn just from the radiant heat, "I didn't rape anyone."

"No?" Alena turned to Ana, "is that true, child?"

Ana wanted to say 'no' but was unable to lie in this most pinnacle of moments, "Yes, he has, me. He's raped me, he's made me do things I never thought possible, and he's hurt me."

"Do you want him to stop?"

A sad smile broke out on Ana's aging face as she looked up at her husband stretched out in his chains and whispered, "Red. No more."

Letting the branding iron fall to the floor so close to Grey's foot, he had to recoil and bringing it back as far as the chains would let him Alena went on. "Do you know what it's like to be six years-old, watching your father be beheaded in front of you, then be dragged off kicking and screaming by psychopathic man? Then to be thrown in a cell and then, when finally compliant, released. Yet it's only to be trained for the next decade in all of the mystical magickal sexual ways of becoming that monster's wife?"

Hearing the very personal story fall from her lips, Ares' ears prick up and his eyes grew narrow waiting to see if she was too deeply invested in this game and would play it out to the conclusion that even he would cheer at this point but had no wish to see her fulfill.

Grey could almost see the images in her unblinking eyes as if they were mini-movie screens touching some transcendent inner part of his mind. "What do you want from me?"

Reaching out behind her quickly without taking her eyes from his gaze, Alena called a seven-foot bullwhip to her hand and stepped off the platform. "I want you to scream, Mr. Grey, I want you to beg me to stop but keep in mind there are no safe words here, not that you paid any attention to them anyway. Then when you're sore and bleeding, I want you to tell me the truth; how many women have you lured into your web of grandiose self-pity over the years? How many have you killed?"

"I haven't killed anyone! Everything was consensual! They were all willing and eager to please me."

Alena could certainly see how his little escapades may have begun that way, he was handsome, he had a certain naive charm that could be mistaken for sophistication, and, of course, he was so very rich. He was the perfect lure, the perfect bait dangling on a hook, for any unsuspecting fish to bite at and be taken in by. Most fish end up on the dinner plate instead of being released back into the wild. "You're a fucking liar, Mr. Grey, too wrapped up in your own bullshit to even know the truth anymore."

When Alena cracked it a second time and opened Grey's knee, Ares stepped to his wife's side, "I think what she means, Christian, is that, the truth will set you free. That there comes a time in every man's life, no matter who he is, how handsome, how rich, how charismatic or powerful, he has to face the music and himself. This is your moment, boy; I wouldn't waste it if I were you."

"How many?" Alena demanded as she flicked the whip back again.

Gathering up all his steely nerve, Christian spit at Alena, "What's it to you? Why do you care?"

That was almost as good as a confession but not quite. "To me? Not me but to her," Alena smiled as she gestured to Ana standing there captivated by the tension, "it's everything." She gave the whip in her hand a good crack letting it lick at his wounded foot and slice open his toes. Just above the gouge left by her heel.

"A man makes up for his own shortcomings, he realizes that we are all damaged and broken in our own ways, he learns to live with it, to understand he's not alone no matter how much he thinks he is. He doesn't expect some woman to come along to make it all better for him because she is not responsible for his past even though she can ignite his future. A man makes his own heart and soul ready to receive love," Alena whispered. "A boy wallows in his misfortunes, he takes pleasure in the manipulation and pain of others demanding they make up for all of the perceived wrong done to him. All the while never knowing that power lies within his own grasp, which one are you, Mr. Grey? Are you a man or little boy pretending to be so?" Alena pulled her wrist back and let it extend forward without ever moving her arm. The tip of the whip broke the sound barrier letting out its loud crack just before it sliced open a swath of flesh on Mr. Grey's six-pack abs. "Answer me, you sack of shit." She let it fly again opening a new swath just above the last.

Grey screamed from the sting of the whip feeling the shock of it run through him even as his blood began trickling down to his pubes. "I'm a man you bitch. Let me out of these chains and I'll show you."

"You're no man, Mr. Grey," Alena chuckled, "do you know why you have an office full of young buxom fillies, this adorable little wife, and a stack of bodies littered behind you?"

"Enlighten me," Grey sneered.

"It's because you can't handle a woman, a full grown woman would expose you for the little whining boy you really are. Besides that, you can't find one dumb enough to put up with your shit. So, you prey up on the young ones those with no life experience and lure them into your perverted web to use, abuse, and if they're lucky, cast away dirty. If they're unlucky, Mr. Grey, what happens to their bodies, what do you do with their empty shells once you've drained every ounce out of them?"

Grey looked at Ana with pleading eyes, "You know I love you. Tell them I love you. I'd never do anything to hurt you."

Ana just smirked and thought of her Life the Cliché. "All you've ever done is hurt me whenever you could and I let you, shame on me." Without even realizing she was doing it, Ana walked up to Alena and took the whip from her hand. "How many?" She whispered to her husband. When he didn't answer, she brought the harsh leather forward.

The lash wasn't as stinging as the ones the silver-haired woman laid on him but it was enough to get his attention yet not enough to lay his hubris to rest. "You know I love you. Let me out of these chains, Ana, I'll spend my life proving it to you."

Ana brought he index finger up to her lips and bit down upon the nail, "That's what you always say." She let the whip fly again but with more anger. It sliced open a small patch of skin on his left bicep. The sight of his blood made her feel good as it awaken a long restrained need for vengeance inside her. "Our children, Christian," Digging deep as she gripped the handle of the whip tight she looked him in the eye and found the strength to ask the question that had been weighing on her mind the last four years, "Did you kill them? Did you take them away from me just because you couldn't stand the love and attention I lavished on them? Love and attention you've never been able to show anyone but yourself."

Wounded and enraged yet trapped in the chains, Christian stared out at the threesome gathered before him looking at him as though he were some new and interesting but pinned to a piece of glass under a microscope. "No," he answered with what he hoped was resound.

"Swear it," Ana demanded and when Christian opened his mouth to do just that she added, "on your company, on all your money, and all your possessions, on my love for you, and everything you hold dear, swear you had nothing to do with the deaths of Teddy and Phoebe." The whip in her hand skittered across the black marble floor showing that her heart and soul were just itching to flog him within an inch of his life if she so much as smelled a lie coming from his lips.

"Search your heart, Ana, search your soul, you'll know, you'll see, I loved them and you."

Ana searched not her heart, not her soul, but his eyes for the truth and came up empty. In a series of uncontrollable lashes, she hit him with the whip opening his cheeks, his chest, and his thighs until his blood ran so much it began to pool on the floor of the platform. With each lash she bellowed the unanswered question; "How many?!"

Although unsympathetic to Christian Grey's plight, but seeing the man's stubbornness and sheer belief that he could take whatever was given him, Ares thought he'd help the night along. He disappeared from the Torture Room only to reappear seconds later with a brown accordion file folder in his hand. "Here," he held it out to Ana, "Look for yourself." Grabbing the whip from her hand, he thrust the folder into it.

"How did you? Where did you? What?"

"It's not important," Ares pointed to the folder. "Go on all your answers are in there."

Grey recognized the folder instantly and was horrified by the sight on it in her delicate hand. "No! Ana! Don't! I'm ordering you, I demand it, do not open that!" Christian shouted as he dangled over the platform.

"You don't order me to do anything anymore," Ana tore it open like a starving man coming across a fresh burrito, she pulled the stack of papers from it with such force a good deal of them sailed through the air to litter the floor. Looking at the first one and seeing that it's bold header read; SEXUAL CONSENT AND NON-DISCLOSURE AGREEMENT she ripped through the pages until she got to the signature only to find it signed by Maria Gonzales, their maid. "Where is she?" Ana demanded, "You said you caught her stealing and you fired her," she shook the papers at the chained man. "Where the fuck is she?" All Ana could think of was Maria's family; she had two sons just graduating from high school, and worked 48 hours a week for the Greys to keep a roof over her boy's heads. She was an honest hard working woman and even Ana had found it hard to believe that Maria would have stolen from them but she didn't question Christian when he offered up the excuse for her sudden departure. Throwing one Agreement after the other to the cold black marble at her feet, Ana realized there had to be fifty of them here, each one dated for after their wedding day and, "No way," she growled as she mounted the platform with her blue eyes glowing fire, "the day I picked out Phoebe's casket?" She shook the agreement in his face, "The day after we buried our SON!" Ana tossed the documents into the air sending them floating around down to the room to the ground as she reached for Christian's throat and began to choke him without remorse, "You twisted fucked-up son of a bitch!" She squeezed and squeezed with all of her might until his handsome face went from crimson to blue to purple. "I hate you!"

For the last time that night Ares felt he should step in, he grabbed Ana by the shoulders, tore her away from Grey's fading jerking body and brought her off the platform. "Don't tarnish your soul that way, pretty lady," he advised before mounting the platform again, walking past Grey shooting the man a glare of derision and walking off the other side. "Here's what you seek." Running his hand along the black wall behind the platform, he stopped when he felt the plate and pushed it.

The floor below Grey's feet began to move, it slid to the left even as his bare toes danced over it hopelessly trying to grab the cold stone and keep it from revealing his darkest secret. "Stop!" He tried to demand but it only came out as a whisper. "Stop!"

But the floor didn't stop; it slid until he dangled over the hidden cache of dead women piled into the platform two deep.

Ana recoiled and threw up as the stench of decay hit her nose and the sight of the faces of the dead women frozen in horror burned into her brain. On the very top was the still fresh and badly battered body of Maria Gonzales, mother and sole supporter of two sons. Ana shrieked as she turned away from the gruesome sight.

"There is the man you married, Ana," Ares announced and was unable to stop from asking the obvious question, "Was it worth it?"

Feeling dumber than a stump but relieved and freed, Ana shook her dark head, "No." She looked up at Christian, "Why?" She gasped. "Why not me?"

The man strung up over his victims with his limp cock pointing down at them didn't answer and so Alena did as she wrapped an arm around the young woman's trembling shoulders, "Because you gave him the one thing he couldn't get on his own; legitimacy. You made him look good in his slick world. When others thought they sniffed out the psychopath in him he had you to hold up like a shield against their doubts."

Ares turned to the woman who was beginning to weep, "He used you, he played you like he does his piano, with precision and expert timing but no real passion or desire. No matter what you did, how hard you tried, or what you gave, you could not save him, Ana, because his soul is black and he did not want to be saved. He wanted to wallow in it like the pig he is. Dahmer, Gacy, Bundy, Ramirez, Berkowitz, and now Grey."

"My mother never loved me!" Grey cried, "That's not my fault! She never loved me! She made me what I am."

"Get over yourself, Mr. Grey," Ares snarled, "or at the very least stop lying to yourself, you may have begun this life an innocent boy who was abused but you chose to let it swallow you hole, to give over to it, to be a wicked man and up until a few minutes ago you reveled in that wickedness." With a grin he stroked the beard on his chin, "Not so funny now, is it?"

"You're a game to him," Alena said to Ana as gently as she could knowing how important it was for the full impact of her life to settle into Ana's mind at this very moment, "Although he treated you like a queen, you're really just a pawn to be used and moved around for nothing more than his dark delight." Seeing in Ana's eyes that she had accomplished her mission of bringing realization, Alena went on, "But it's not too late for you. You are still young. Still vibrant. You are beautiful. You are intelligent and spirited. You can make a life for yourself without him and put all of this behind you. Do you want that, my dear?"

Ana, because of her good conditioning knew she would be able to accept being made a fool of and might even be able to be forced into deluding herself away from the ugly truth of the deaths of her children. Nothing could ever take away the sight of the naked decaying bodies below him or the welling gratefulness in her heart that she was not among them. "Yes," she said strongly, "I want to be free truly free."

Not liking the glint in her eyes, Christian hanging in his chains again began to plead, "You can have a divorce," he offered, "I'll give you half of everything."

"Sure you will," Ana returned, "and you'll stalk me, you'll hunt me down, and never give me a moment's peace just like you did in the beginning when you made me believe you couldn't live without me. But the truth was you couldn't let me live without you. You'll never let me go. Never."

Christian knew the jig was up and that no matter what he said or did it wouldn't get him his way so he let his true self show through, "You got that right, bitch, you're mine to do with as I please no let me out of these fucking chains or I'll punish you like never before." Despite his predicament, he delivered the threat perfectly with the right inflection and hint of power in his eyes but Ana stood there and laughed at him.

"I don't know which one of us is more pathetic," Ana spat as she turned around and swayed her way over to the blacksmiths' forge still blazing away. She plucked a glowing red rod from the embers, "But I know this, you'll never torture anyone again you narcissistic pig." Holding the glowing rod out in front of her like a torch, she paused only momentarily when Ari stepped in front of her to block her path.

Alena came forward to slip her arm around the big Greek's slim waist and pull him out of Ana's path. As she walked past them she swore she heard Alena whisper in his ear; "This is her cross to burn."

Striding up the platform that stopped when it was three-quarters of the way open, she made her way behind her husband who bucked and thrashed in his chains. "I should have seen you for what you are before now," she hissed in his ear before jamming the hot glowing metal rod between his firm ass cheeks and straight up the brown hole. "You're no good," she cooed sweetly as he screamed at the agony and indignity of having his colon seared shut. Leaving the rod inside him, smelling his cooking flesh, she strolled in front of him, "How's that feel?"

"Stop! Don't hurt me!" Christian sobbed listening to the sizzle of his insides and letting the scent waft to him, being disgusted as he found it to be the same exotic smell of a fine steak. The same mind-blowing, cock hardening, stench he'd smelled a hundred times before from his victims shackled right here and pleading for his mercy. "Please, let me go, I won't say anything, please, please, let me go."