Grey Continued: Episode 15—Facing Harsh Realities

It was a close race between Old World Charm and Classic Rustic Tuscan, but Old World Charm won.

I won’t even begin to tell you how horrid my holiday was. It’s not even worth repeating. Let’s just get on with the story.

Falala, my snowflakes are on my front door greeting everyone who comes to my home for the New Year. ❤ A little good news is that we’ve been having some warmer days and we’ve finally passed the winter solstice, so the days are a minute or so  longer each day and it helps a bit with my seasonal depression. 

This is a work of creativity. As such, you may see words, concepts, scenes, actions, behaviors, pictures, implements, and people that may or may not be socially acceptable and/or offensive. If you are sensitive to adverse and alternative subject matter of any kind, please do not proceed, because I guarantee you’ll find it here. You have been warned. Read at your own risk.

I do not own Fifty Shades Trilogy, or the characters. They belong to E. L. James. I am only exercising my right to exploit, abuse, and mangle the characters to MY discretion in MY story in MY interpretation as a fan. If something that I say displeases you, please, just leave. If you don’t like this story or me, please don’t spoil this experience for everyone. Just go away. For the rest of you, the saga continues…

Episode 15—Facing Harsh Realities

ANASTASIA

I immediately regret knocking on Marilyn’s door without calling. I don’t know what she’s doing or even if she’s awake yet. When she opens the door, I can clearly see that she’s been crying. She’s not a sodden and soppy mess, but her skin is blotchy, and her eyes are still a bit glassy.

“I knew it was you,” she says. “No one else would be knocking since Vee and Fergus have their own room, and everybody’s probably avoiding me like the plague.”

“Well, I don’t know if anyone is avoiding you,” I say honestly as I enter and close the door behind me. “Unfortunately, I know from experience that you can’t hide grief, no matter how hard you try. It’s impossible. If only people wouldn’t be so terrible about how they interpret it.” She falls down on the sofa in her sitting area and I take a seat next to her.

“I won’t ask how you’re holding up,” I say. “My visit has many reasons.”

“Shoot,” she says.

“First, I’m shamelessly checking up on you,” I tell her. “You left suddenly last night and even though you handled the situation with grace, it couldn’t have been easy.” She sighs.

“It wasn’t,” she says. “To come back and hear a table full of people talk about how they thought you were bulimic or anorexic…” She shakes her head. “Thanks for defending me, by the way.”

“I wouldn’t say that I was defending you,” I admit. “I just think it’s very rude to talk about someone behind their back that way when you have no idea what was going on. Then, they would all be smiling in your face when you came back to the table. All they had to do was ask if they were that concerned. If you didn’t want to tell them, you wouldn’t tell them, but don’t just jump to conclusions.”

“Well, thanks for whatever you did,” she replies. We’re silent for a moment, then I strike up the conversation again.

“The other reasons I came by was, well, we don’t talk anymore. I know that you’re hurting, and I don’t want to push it, but your doctor did say that therapy might help, and some yoga or meditation. I’m great with all those things, you know,” I press.

“Yes, I know…” and that’s all she says.

“I miss being able to talk to you,” I tell her, “but I don’t know what to say right now without being insensitive to your feelings.” She sighs again.

“I guess I won’t know what bothers me until it bothers me,” she says. “I don’t want you to think you can’t talk to me. I’m just trying to muddle my way through this life, and to be honest, I don’t quite know how.”

“That’s one of the reasons I want you to be able to talk to me… about anything. And if we can’t do that just yet, then let’s try some of the other relaxation or stress-relieving techniques. Any illness or hurt has to start mending somewhere, Mare, or you just stay sick.” She shakes her head and rolls her eyes.

“Have you tried to eat anything yet?” I ask. “Have you had your smoothie or anything?” She shakes her head. “Good, because I’m starving. All I’ve had is coffee. So, I’m going to order some breakfast—and a smoothie and a carafe of orange juice—and we’ll see where it goes.” She nods.

“Okay,” she cedes. “I haven’t showered yet, so I’ll do that while you wait for breakfast.” I nod and she heads off to the shower.

I call downstairs and order double servings of a traditional southern breakfast in case anything on the tray tempts her nostrils and she decides to give it a try. Then I check my phone again and the pictures of me that are on Facebook. There have been several likes and comments, some good, some bad as I would expect. I wanted attention in that dress, I sure as hell got it. I don’t know if my father or Mandy is on social media, but I’m kind of hoping that they don’t see this even though they were front and center for the fashion show.

“Why the face?” Mare asks as she comes out of the bedroom in one of the hotel terrycloth robes. Wow, that was fast. I turn my phone to her, and she looks at the picture.

“You’re on Facebook?” she asks.

“Apparently,” I say, scrolling through the pictures once more.

“No, I mean you have a Facebook profile?” I frown.

“Oh! Yeah, but there’s nothing on it. It’s very non-distinct. I don’t even know if I’m going to put anything on it with the publicity I’m getting down here. So much for ‘What happens in Vegas.’” I put the phone on the coffee table.

“Do you really want a social media presence?” she asks. “It can be even more intrusive than the paparazzi.” I shrug.

“I don’t know,” I tell her. “Right now, I only use it to chat with my friend from Australia. She’s the one who convinced me to set it up. I really can’t see any other use for it right now.” She sits on the sofa.

“Nights are the worst,” she says, her head down. “I lay in bed praying for sleep to come to me, and even if I’m exhausted, it takes forever. We slept in knots. We’re both heat-seekers, so if either of us awoke and the other was too far away, we would move over and snuggle in and go back to sleep. There’s no heat in my bed anymore, so I can’t sleep. I can’t even find the slight peace I had before I met him… and that’s why I cry a lot at night.”

“Only at night?” I press.

“Mostly at night,” she says, “but there are some nights that just run right into the day because I don’t sleep at all. Even when I fall asleep, I wake up and remember that he’s not there, so I’m just crying again.”

Oh, dear. So, now she’s not eating or sleeping. No wonder she doesn’t look well. She’s killing herself.

“I’m a realist,” she says. “I don’t expect this to go away overnight, but it’s been nearly three months and I feel like this just happened yesterday. When will this get easier?”

“I don’t have that answer for you, Mare,” I respond. “Breakups really suck.”

“This is so much more than that,” she confesses. “I’ve had breakups before. I was sad, disappointed, angry… nothing felt like this. Nothing has ever felt like this. I feel like somebody died.”

Yeah, unfortunately, that’s what breaking up is—your relationship died. And if you were really in love, there’s no telling how long you mourn the deceased.

“I miss him so much,” she says, wiping a tear from her face… and now she’s crying again. “I miss his smell, his voice, his touch. I miss him holding me and our crazy after-sex talks.” She throws her head back and looks at the ceiling, the tears falling down her temples now.

“He was supposed to get a promotion at City of Lights,” she says. “I wonder if he got it…”

A knock at the door signals that breakfast is here and I’m certain that getting Mare to eat at this point is going to be an Olympic feat. The tray smells wonderful as the porter rolls the tray into the suite. I thank him and roll the tray into the dining room. I begin to uncover the plates and set them on the dining table—double servings of fluffy scrambled eggs, home fries, hominy grits, ham, and biscuits with sausage gravy, and of course, a fruit and vegetable smoothie and orange juice.

“That’s a mountain of food,” she says when she sees it.

“And I’m starving,” I tell her, “but I’m hoping something might tempt you to nibble. If not, I’ve got your smoothie and some orange juice.” She smiles weakly as she takes a seat at the table, sitting on her feet in one of the chairs.

I begin to load my plate with the delicious food and pour myself a fresh cup of coffee and some orange juice. Jesus, I really am hungry.

“I’m going to change my phone number,” Mare says, playing with the straw of her smoothie. My brow furrows.

“Why?” I ask.

“It’s hard waiting and hoping that he’ll call,” she says. “It may be an exercise in futility, but it’ll be a step in the right direction for me.”

An attempt to let go… I get it.

“Are you sure?” I ask.

“No,” she says, “but I’m going to do it anyway.” She sips her smoothie. I chow down on my breakfast while Marilyn talks, telling me that she needs to go shopping for some new clothes as none of her old clothes fit anymore. I want to take her to the spa for a complete treatment—mani, pedi, exfoliating, massage, cut and color. She’s totally wearing her grief and it needs to be scrubbed, plucked, and rubbed out of her, but I think that may be too much too soon.

“How long did it take you to get over Edward?” she asks, and she surprises me by retrieving a fork and picking at some of the eggs on the plate, eating very small bites, but eating.

“I honestly don’t remember,” I tell her, finishing the last bites of my breakfast and refilling my coffee from the pot. “You have to keep in mind, though, that my story is much different than yours. I was betrayed and cheated on, so in addition to losing the man that I loved, I had to deal with healing from the deliberate pain that he put me through. That part took a long time.”

“I’m not saying that my situation is better or worse than yours,” she says after swallowing another mouthful of eggs, “but Gary really was the best thing that has ever happened to me in my life so far. So, I don’t know which is worse—having your heart ripped out, stomped on, and destroyed by someone who was supposed to love you, but finally getting away from that loser… or knowing that the man who makes your heart leap with excitement and love is alive and well and walking this earth and never wants to speak to you again… for something that you did.”

Yeah, that’s a tough call.

“Well, you know how when someone dies, they always tell you to remember the good times?” I begin.

“That doesn’t help,” she says. “It only intensifies the reality of what I’ve lost.”

“I get that,” I say, “but you can’t get rid of those memories. They’ll always be there, and they’re good memories. It’s strange that you asked me about Edward,” I say looking into my coffee cup. “Vee had just come up to the room to discuss my wardrobe reveal on Facebook this morning…”

“I bet that went well,” she says sarcastically. I raise my gaze to her.

“Let’s just say that she won’t ask about my clothes in the future,” I say. “Anyway, Christian and I began to talk about the implications of our wardrobe choices last night, how the men were catcalling from their seats, but the women were more brazen in their pursuits.”

“Whoa, I missed something, huh?” she asks, finishing the eggs to my delight.

“Yeah, you did, but nothing huge, just a tiny floorshow. Nonetheless, the conversation got me to thinking about Edward and our relationship—how the women knew that we were together, but they were unbelievably brazen in flaunting the fact that they were fucking him. They were so disrespectful to me that I couldn’t even go out anywhere anymore. They were everywhere! Everywhere I went—clubs, social events, anything—they were always there. I remember that I even changed some of my interests, sought out different things and different groups of people, but no matter where I turned, someone from that core group of women was always there and I couldn’t escape. That’s not surprising, because there was so many of them.

“I’ve been with my husband for three years now,” I continue. “We have two beautiful children and a wonderful life. I had dropped that man nearly four years before I met my husband, but even now, I find myself lost in melancholy sometimes about the things that he put me through. I had nightmares about the kidnapping for a long time, but seeing him intimate in so many ways with so many women…” I trail off and finger my coffee cup.

“He’s been dead for nearly a year now. He can’t hurt me anymore, and he couldn’t even if he was alive, but the ache of what he put me through, I can always go back to it just like it happened yesterday. It’s always going to be there even if it’s not as intense as it was when I was in the thick of it. I sometimes have to push those thoughts away by force, remembering that those times won’t come back.

“I know the grass always looks greener on the other side,” I say, feeling the anguish rise in my throat again, but swallowing it back down, “but I know from painful experience that when you love someone and your heart is broken, it eventually mends. It may not mend as quickly or as seamlessly as we would like, but it does mend, and remembering the good times aren’t so bad. But when someone treats you like shit, makes you feel like shit, makes you doubt everything you thought you knew, makes you walk away from nearly everyone and everything you thought was familiar because you found out that you were the butt of the joke, you don’t get over that,” I say shaking my head.

“That pain comes back and back and back, and when you think it’s gone, something happens to jar the memory and it’s peeking its head back into the door at you again. So, I know that you’re hurting and I’m not minimizing your pain, but if I had to choose between your pain with Gary and my pain with Edward, I’d choose yours, because I know you’ll mend one day. Try to take a little comfort from that even though I know it’s not much.”

It’s quiet for a moment as I twirl my coffee mug and she sips her smoothie.

“I didn’t mean to bring you down, Bosslady,” she apologizes. I shake my head.

“You didn’t,” I inform her. “I selfishly thought to come down and check on you and talk to you because Edward and his harem had come to mind while I was in my suite as a byproduct of a prior conversation. I hope you don’t mind.”

“I don’t,” she says. “I’ll just have to take your word for it about this whole mending thing, though.” I take her hand.

“Look, I was going to see if I could find a yoga place nearby, just to get some air, but while I was searching, I found this meditation center. I’m not sure if you’ve ever tried meditation before, but when I’m totally lost and out of my center, it helps me find my way back. It’s not a complete cure-all, but it’s a really good start.”

She twists her lips skeptically at me, but finally gives in.

“Okay,” she says.

“And if you like, we can go to the outlet mall and grab a few things.”

“You hate the mall, Bosslady,” she says.

“Yes, but this is different,” I tell her. “You need some things and a little retail therapy never hurt.”

*-*

I stop to say goodbye to Daddy and Mandy and to tell Christian where I’m going, and Chuck and Carol accompany me and Mare to the Las Vegas Meditation Center. Not very original, I know, but the center is very professional and informative. The guide doesn’t inundate Marilyn with a bunch of mumbo-jumbo, but she—like me—can see Mare’s dis-ease without much effort.

“Confusion in your life is often brought on by confusion in your spirit,” Maya says. “This often leads to bad decisions, lack of self-care, and overall poor health. At the root of it all, everybody wants to be happy, whatever happiness means to each person. The source of true happiness is found inside. If you have a lot of confusion, anger, sadness, and discord, there’s no way you can find peace. No matter what’s happening outside, you won’t find happiness until you find peace inside. That’s the goal of meditation. You find the method that’s best for you based on what is ailing you most right now. What’s at the crust of your discontent?” Mare pauses for a moment.

“A recent breakup,” she replies. Maya nods.

“Was it mutual?” she asks. Mare shakes her head.

“It was not,” she replies.

“So… it has left you broken and out-of-sorts,” Maya observes.

“Very much.”

“How long?” Maya asks. Mare clears her throat.

“Two months… two weeks… one day,” she says, whispering the last two words. I feel so bad for her.

“Still new,” Maya says softly. Mare nods, obviously fighting back her tears.

“When two people come together, they become one. When you split, you lose a part of yourself and you’re forced to get it back without that other person. That’s why they’re often called your ‘other half.’ You have to find yourself again,” Maya says. “It’s a long journey, but you must take it.” She takes Marilyn’s hand. “I suggest Zen or transcendental meditation. I’ll get you started with some books and quick techniques. Don’t try to read everything, you’ll get overwhelmed…”

I follow Maya and Mare around the center, and I have to admit that the information she’s providing is quite solid. She doesn’t talk to Mare about getting over Gary. She talks about finding the center that she lost when she and Gary split, about finding one good thing in each day that makes her feel a little better—no matter how big or small—even if she has to create that one good thing.

She could put me out of business if more people paid attention.

I hand Maya my Amex Black once she has given Mare a solid jumping-off point with books, some music, and even some candles and a meditation pillow.

“I got it, Bosslady,” Mare says.

“You wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t dragged you here,” I tell her. “Besides, you won’t have a choice but to give it your all if I get it for you.”

“Don’t take her card,” Mare says to Maya before looking back at me. “That’s exactly why I have to get these things myself,” she says. “I do want to get better. I do want to come out of this, so I need to do this.” She hands Maya her card, and I can’t argue with her logic. I’m proud of her for feeling this way, but I’m beginning to regret introducing her to Gary. I wouldn’t have done it had I thought either of them would end up in this kind of pain, and I know they’re both hurting.

We take our wares back to the car and Chuck drives us to the other end of the world and the Outlet Mall. It’s well into the afternoon by the time Marilyn has found enough pieces to cover her for a couple of weeks as we don’t know how long we’ll be here. We stop at the food court and I don’t bother trying to get her something to eat. We go straight to Tropical Smoothie and we both have one for lunch.

“I call his voicemail in the middle of the night,” she says as we’re sitting at a table in the food court, “the one at City of Lights. I never leave a message. I just listen to his voice.” She drops her head and sighs sadly. “How am I ever supposed to get over him if I can’t let go?”

“Time, Mare,” I say. “That’s what it’s going to take. Nobody said that you would just stop loving him, and nobody’s saying that you have to, even now. It would be impossible. Your love for him isn’t a curse, even though it hurts. It’s a beautiful thing, and you may have to use that love to get over him, if that’s what’s in the stars.” She raises her gaze to me.

“Why would you say that?” she asks. “What else could possibly be in the stars?”

“Anything!” I tell her. “Anything at all can be in the stars. Who am I to say? And who are you? We all have to die one day, but we do everything we can right now to live and that’s what you have to do even though death is inevitable. But Marilyn, death is the only thing that’s inevitable. So, yes, anything is in the stars. Do you understand?” She swallows and nods.

“I get it,” she says. “Now, can we go? I’m really tired of being strong right now.” I nod and stand.

“Let’s go,” I say, grabbing some of her bags.

*-*

“I was wondering if Mac had chased you away from me for the day,” Christian says when I get back to the suite.

“No, just… trying to help Marilyn out of her funk, as much as anybody can,” I say, dropping a bag of my own wares.

“How is she?” he asks, helping me out of my coat.

“The same,” I tell him. I go to the kitchen and retrieve a bottle of water. “She’s trying to cope, but… I know you don’t have any experience with breakups, but this is one of the worst I’ve ever seen. I tried comparing her situation with my breakup with Edward…”

“How the hell did that happen?” he asks.

“Don’t ask,” I say, taking a few healthy chugs of the cold water. “A series of dominos. Anyway, I feel like my breakup with Edward was worse…”

“I concur,” he interrupts. I twist my lips.

“I just didn’t spiral down the wormhole as badly as she did,” I finish. “It was rough, and I had several years of withdrawal, and I was able to recoil and get on with my life, even though I didn’t have a relationship for several years. She’s destroying her health, and if she doesn’t come out of this pretty soon, it may be irreparable.”

“So, what now?” he asks. “She’s obviously going to need some intensive therapy.”

“She doesn’t want to go through therapy for a breakup,” I tell him. “She’ll barely talk to me about it.”

“This is more than a break-up…” That’s what she said. “This is affecting her health and everything and everyone around her.”

“Yeah, I know. She opened up a bit today and I’m hoping she’ll get a little better after this. We’ll just have to see.”

“I hope you’re right,” he replies. He doesn’t say anything more but what he doesn’t say is louder than what he says, and his implication is correct. Neither of us wants her to find out the hard way that she’s got to come up out of this funk and fast. Nobody is expecting her to wake up one day and be “all better,” but she’s got to get on the road to better because she’s going way down the rabbit hole.

---

CHRISTIAN

Butterfly reluctantly decides to stay in Vegas for a few more days to see if the jury comes to a verdict with the promise to our babies that we’ll be home on or by the weekend. Al opts to stay with her since he knows that, one way or another, we’ll all be back in Vegas next weekend. She and Al spent Sunday afternoon watching 80’s movies while I caught up on things happening at GEH. I kept the block of rooms just in case anyone wants to come back on short notice.

Monday and Tuesday were just like regular workdays for all parties involved, except we set up shop in a Las Vegas hotel. Butterfly and I Skype into the department head meeting, and the peasants are just as subservient, obedient, and accommodating as they are when we’re there. I love the fact that my wife shows no sign of weakness in front of the staff even though this has been one of the most trying times she’s faced in a while—and she’s faced a few! However, she still exercises her authority as necessary in the meeting, asking specific questions about progress on the issues she discussed with various members of the management team, doling out praise for a job well done, additional instructions for the “next steps of the process,” as she put it, and swinging the Butterfly sword when necessary on those who aren’t making the mark.

“She’s just what we needed,” Lorenz says in a private video chat. “No matter how much you shook your fist in here, it was still business as usual. Everybody waited to see who would get the fist or the ax, but no one was moved enough to make a significant difference. When she came breezing through here like, ‘Shape the fuck up or ship the fuck out because I will close this whole thing down, they believed her. We believed her. Even Ros got her ass in gear.”

“I guess there’s nothing like fresh new hell to get the ball rolling in the right direction,” I tell him.

“Yeah,” he concurs. “I don’t know what’s going on these days with her personal life, but she’s thrown herself full force into her work. You’d be impressed.”

“That’s the Ros I know,” I reply. “Though I hope everything works out for her, I really don’t want to know the details. I don’t mean to be insensitive, but I can’t empathize with where she is at the moment.”

“Hear, hear,” he concurs. “I won’t judge, but I don’t get it. I’ll just leave it at that.”

I appreciate that he doesn’t want to discuss the situation any further. There’s not a lot I have to say on the matter. I end the call with a few instructions and move on to other issues at hand.

Later that evening, my wife dons a sexy black dress with straps across the chest and an alluring peekaboo oval right at her cleavage, while I slip into basic black Armani, and we take a little drive up the strip in a 2015 Audi A5 with a moonroof that Jason procured earlier in the day. We decided to forego security for this little trip since the paparazzi has seemed to die down since the trial has ended and the jury is now in deliberations.

I’m pleasantly surprised that Butterfly enjoys the view of the strip through the sunroof during our drive. I veer west on Spring Mountain Road and proceed to our destination, a small Japanese restaurant called Aburiya Raku. It has some pretty good reviews and when we arrive, we see that there are mostly Japanese clientele. When the native ethnic group is en masse in the establishment, you know you’ve made the right choice.

We enjoy a variety of delicious Robatayaki items all grilled on oak binchotan—yakitori Chicken, duck, and Kobe beef skewers, including Kurobuta pork cheek and asparagus with bacon. We also have salmon roe and direct flamed eggplant. The sea urchin looked less than appetizing, so we shied away from that delicacy. We have the three-sake sampler—Juyondai and Isojiman both served cold, and Kubota sake heated. Kubota is normally a very dry sake, but when served heated, it has a softer flavor.

The experience is just what we needed to loosen up and just as we’re leaving, Butterfly needs to go to the restroom. She’s in there for a while and just as I’m settling the bill, I almost go to the restroom to see if she has fallen in when she comes storming back to the table, snatches her coat and purse and marches out the door of the restaurant.

What the fuck?

I quickly walk out behind her and the moment I clear the door, she begins walking towards the car. What the hell is going on? We just had a wonderful meal and now, she’s walking like she’s trying to escape from the police and huffing like a bull. I hit the key fob to unlock the car and she’s in the passenger seat before I can even get to her to open her door. When I get in the car, she’s breathing heavily in the seat next to me, sweating, her chest rising and falling lusciously underneath the straps of her dress.

“Drive!” she demands. My brow furrows.

“Butter…”

“Drive!” she hisses again. I don’t give her a chance to say it a third time. I drop the gear and peel out of the parking lot, not sure where I’m going.

“I hate this place!” she hisses. “I fucking hate this fucking place!” She rifles into her purse and pulls out a small bottle of hand sanitizer. She dumps a healthy amount of it into her hands and scrubs vigorously. She then dries her hand with a paper towel that was haphazardly shoved into her purse.

What the hell did she do in there, kill somebody?

I don’t ask what’s wrong. I quietly drive and wait for instructions for my wife to tell me where we’re going. Are we going back to the hotel? I don’t turn on the strip. I just drive down Spring Mountain Road until the street starts to curve and the neighborhood looks a little shady. I get back to a main street and, knowing that I turned left on Spring Mountain to get to the restaurant, I turn right on the main street.

At first, the neighborhood still looks pretty unsavory, and I wish I had Jason with me. After a while, the speed limit slows to a crawl, and I realize that we’re in the college district.

Butterfly still hasn’t said anything. She just sits there looking ahead of her.

I drive through the college district for a few miles until the road that we’re on ends and I have to veer to the right since I’m in the right lane…

And I end up driving through the airport.

Now, I’ve been to many airports in many cities, in many countries, on nearly every continent, and I’ve yet to find one that isn’t difficult as hell to navigate. McCarran is no different.

Here we go loop-de-loo for about 15 minutes and I finally manage to get to the other side of the airport… thank God. The bad news is that I now know that we are not only on the other side of the strip—which I suspected—but we’ve also passed our hotel.

And my wife is still silent. Okay, enough of this shit.

The airport interchange or connector or whatever the hell it is also ties in with the freeway. So, now I need to get off the freeway. The first exit says Sunset, only “exit” is misleading. It’s a maze of go-around-another-loop-onto-another-connecter-then-veer-right-onto-another-ramp-and-you-had-better-know-where-you’re-going-when-you-finally-get-to-the-street.

Left, or right?

Since we’ve crossed and we’re on the other side of the hotel, I think we need to go left because we need to head west. I turn left when the light turns green and proceed down Sunset Road. I’m sure the next light has to be Las Vegas Blvd and we can head back to the hotel.

Wrong.

The next light is Eastern. If we haven’t gotten back to the strip yet, we’re going the wrong way. That’s it. I need to find somewhere to pull over so that I can check the GPS and get us back to the Waldorf. After we’ve driven in silence for a while, my wife barks at me.

“Turn here!”

I’m actually startled a bit and I make an immediate right where she tells me to turn. My hands grip the steering wheel and I’m actually relieved to find that there were no vehicles or pedestrians to my immediate right, or I would have surely hit them. The area is well-lit even though it’s very late and I wonder where we are.

“Butterfly…” I begin, my voice scolding as I want to chastise her for startling me while I’m driving.

“Turn here!” she barks again.

“Ana!”

“Turn!”

I narrow my eyes at her and turn. We’re clearly in a park as I notice we pass a baseball field. There’s no talking to her right now. She’s livid about whatever happened in the moments that we were separated. We’re leaving the lighted area and driving more into a darker, shaded area now.

“There!” she barks. “Park there.”

I pull up next to a partially wooded area and turn the car off. Butterfly is facing forward, blankly looking ahead, no longer breathing heavily, but still breathing fire, nonetheless.

“Butterfly, what the he…”

“Take your pants down,” she says impassively. I frown deeply.

“What?” I retort in disbelief.

“Take your pants down!” she repeats, her head whipping towards me.

“Anastasia, I hardly…”

“Do you wanna talk or do you wanna get fucked?” Hell, really? I’ve never seen her like this. She is simmering angry… and ordering me to drop trou. If I protest right now, I’m afraid that I’ll risk that second option being taken off the table for the rest of this cursed trip. “Take. Your. Pants. Down.”

She’s not going to repeat that shit. I obediently undo my belt, my button, and my fly. Lifting my hips, I pull my pants down just above my knees and before I can get my ass back into the seat, she leans over, grabs my cock and takes the whole thing in her mouth.

“Whoa!” I exclaim, not prepared for the attack.

“Shut up!” she hisses. I have no idea what has her in this mood—and so goddamn bossy. I resent it a bit, but I like it much more than I resent it. She’s not my Domme; she’s someone else, but just as sexually demanding as my Domme.

My dick was flaccid a moment ago, but it hardens almost instantly with her technique—slow, deep, and hard… forceful, taking me from base to tip with no difficulty at all.

“Fuck!” I hiss quietly, one hand gripping the leather door handle while the other grasps the armrest between us. She’s fucking me so hard with her mouth that I only have a small amount of room to thrust up into her mouth on her downstroke. I wasn’t prepared, and I have to concentrate on not coming immediately. It only takes moments to get me so hard that I could knock down the trees in front of us with my dick at this moment. She’s going to fucking murder me…

She moves quickly, lifting her dress and rising to her knees. She pulls her dress up over her ass and before I can think or protest, she straddles me and kisses me deeply. Fuck, what is she doing?

She pushes the buttons on my door and my seat slowly reclines enough until she feels comfortable. I watch in aroused awe as she hoists one leg up on the armrest that my hand was previously occupying, the other nestled in the seat between my body and the door. Her legs are open wide and even though she’s still wearing her panties, I can smell her insane arousal.

Panties… she makes quick work of that, too.

Apparently, in her haste, she forgot to remove them. She grunts impatiently, and I hear the distinct sound of tearing fabric. Unwilling to just pull them aside and take care of business, she rips them off and tosses them into the passenger seat.

Fuck! My dick is hard and hot at the sight of that. She’s going to tear me apart.

She reaches between us and guides my head towards her opening. Upon finding her prize, she looks me in the eyes—hers already a deep blue, not royal like when she’s about to come, but damn near indigo. Fuck, that turns me on all by itself. Steadying herself on my shoulders, she works her way down onto my shaft without taking her eyes from mine, slowly taking me inch by inch.

“Sssssss!” I hiss as she envelops me.

“Quiet!” she whispers, glaring at me, still pushing her pussy down onto me. Her mouth opens when she takes me, but no sound comes out. She sits there for a moment, not moving, just wrapped tightly around my erection. Now, my mouth opens. She’s so tight and hot—not warm, hot—and she feels so damn good. A tortured breath escapes my parted lips and the hand that was previously on the armrest now rests on her bare hip.

She grabs my face as sticks her tongue into my mouth, giving and taking the most lavish and sensual kisses. I groan in agony at the decadence of being buried inside of her while she kisses me like this. I lap into her mouth, tasting her deeply as my dick gets harder and harder inside her. She breaks our kiss and my lips feel bereft, but she alleviates that issue by rising off my dick and falling achingly slowing back onto it.

Oh, God… this is too fucking much for me…

She grinds so. Damn. Slow, up and down on my cock, causing an unbelievable burn on my skin. I don’t even know how she has the control to move that slowly. The entire time, she doesn’t take her eyes off mine. We’re so close that our foreheads are nearly touching, our open mouths breaths from each other, and I’m at her fucking mercy.

“Fuck me,” she breathes, but I don’t know how. I don’t know how to move this slowly, this meticulously, without breaking her rhythm. I don’t move yet and she rises and falls a few more times. I hear her gasp and her pussy gets wetter, so she changes—just a bit—her stroke a little faster, but only a little, and still incredibly deep and painstakingly slow.

She feels so good riding me slow, her cunt sliding all the way to the very tip of my cock then slowly and painfully devouring me balls deep. It’s an exercise in torture, and she’s insatiable… hungry. I groan at the intense burn and the tightening in my cock.

“Hold it!” she growls, grabbing my face again. “Fuck me. I want to feel that hard cock.”

Fuck, this is insane! We’re not in a scene, but with her taking charge this way, I know I better obey and not come. I revert to my stamina exercises—painful minutes and hours of training as a submissive where I was fucked, fondled, and teased deliciously and ordered not to come. This is so much worse, so much hotter and sweeter and it feels so good, over and over, torturous minute after minute after minute of sweet, painful manipulation of my dick.

“Don’t come,” she commands in a husky voice when she feels me thicken. “Fuck me.”

Don’t come, Grey. Don’t come.

Our mouths are wide open, the passion and pleasure so deep and intense that we can only dart our tongues out occasionally to taste one another.

I grip her ass, raw and naked and juicy, her hips sliding slowly up and down my cock. Fuck, it’s so good. I only have to move my hips infinitesimally to get the deepest penetration, but God when I do…

“Fuck!” I hiss. I’m not going to make it. I close my eyes and try to concentrate on not coming, because the sight of her on top of me, the smell of our intermingling arousal, the sound of her wet pussy coating my erection as she rises and falls over me—It’s fucking with every one of my senses, not just the obvious ones.

“Ana, baby…” I groan as I squeeze that sweet ass on her every downstroke, trying not to guide her talented hips over my cock—not that I have to—but I sure take advantage of pressing my fingertips into her skin and squeezing that ass on every gyration.

She’s fucking torturing me, her hips and ass claiming me in slow, controlled movements, and that’s the only part of her body that’s moving. Oh God, she’s milking me… milking me so hard with meticulous, intent hip rolls. I feel like I’m fucking floating as she fucks me deeper, slower… I’m going to come…

The car jerks and I’m snapped out of my Nirvana. What the fuck was that?

Somehow, the car lurched into gear amidst our sensual dance and we were slowly moving forward the entire time. My senses blurred, I’m trying to figure out what has happened and where we are. The car has stopped moving and the ruffle of leaves around us helps to clear my fuzzy mind. We’ve rolled into a bunch of trees or shrubbery or something and except for the back of the car, we’re surrounded by flora.

My wife never stopped stroking.

There could have been an earthquake around us, and she probably wouldn’t have stopped.

“Don’t stop!” she says without lifting her head to observe our surroundings. “Almost there…”

Almost? Shit, if it weren’t for the distraction of the trees, I’d be blowing off inside you right now!

Thank God for trees!

I grab that ass again, my fingers spread out over each of those juicy, bare cheeks. Thank the forces of inertia for that brief interruption, because this party was about to be over… but the inertia in my wife’s hips and her continued hip rolls and concentrated strokes on my eager dick assures that my reprieve is short-lived.

Her hair has fallen into my face. One of her fingertips has slipped into the corner of my lips and it tastes good. She’s panting into my mouth and I’m breathing her breath as I’m panting my own. She’s totally owning me.

“Ana…” I breathe hopelessly as I feel her tightening around me.

“God… Christian…” she squeaks as she cums hard on my cock, fucking me through her orgasm and never losing her rhythm. Her pussy is so juicy that I can feel her nectars sliding down my dick with each stroke. The prior distraction of the collision completely gone, I sink my fingers deep into the meat of her ass and meet her orgasmic strokes, still not having to lift my hips very high as she’s controlling my thrusts. Moments later, I let go.

Boy, do I let go!

I hold her hips and ass hard so that only the top half of my dick is inside her. I can feel my cock thumping and pumping so hard that it hurts… really hurts.

“Gah!” I whisper-choke through the painful ecstasy as my dick thumps so hard with each muscle contraction from my balls that I can feel it violently pushing against the walls of her pussy. My legs are trembling with the unbearable and seemingly never-ending pleasure and I wish I had a camera recording the hot action of my hands tightly gripping my wife’s beautiful ass while my dick—only partially inserted inside of her—visibly throbs madly as it empties violently into her hot pussy. The visual sends me into a whole new series of squirts, vibrations, and tremors—if that’s even possible—and my body is useless and shaking underneath her as I come and come and come…

What seems like several minutes later, my wife crawls off of me, retrieves her panties from the passenger seat and begins to clean herself.

“Not that I’m complaining, but do I get to know what brought that on?” I ask as I slide my pants and boxers back into place.

“Stupid bitches in the bathroom,” she says, still cleaning herself. “I don’t want to talk about it.” I sigh and get out of the car to survey the damage. We’re stuck in the trees and the front of the car is sunk in mud up to the bumper. Jesus Christ. I pull out my phone and call Jason.

“Sir?”

“Can you track my phone and come and get us?” I tell Jason. “I have no idea where we are. Get an Uber or a taxi—I don’t care—just come and get us.”

“We’re at Sunset Park,” Butterfly grumbles, “and send a damn tow truck.” The line is silent for a moment.

“Did she say tow truck?” Jason asks. I try not to get irritated. Whatever’s bothering Butterfly, she’s irritated enough for the both of us and that hot fuck didn’t seem to help.

“Yes,” I tell him. “We’ve had a bit of a mishap with the rental…”

“I’ll be there in ten.”

*-*

“Keep your clothes on,” she says. “Drop your pants and sit down.”

My wife has given me a few instructions when we arrive back at the hotel, and I’m going to do what she tells me since nothing that has happened so far has softened her sour mood since we left the restaurant.

I dutifully drop my pants and sit in the large chair with the large ottoman in front of it. While I’m sitting there, she goes off into the bedroom and I hear her rummaging through something. Make-up? Luggage?

She comes back with a travel-sized bottle in her hand, but I can’t see what it is. Standing on the other side of the ottoman, she undoes her dress, pulls it off her shoulders and lets it drop to the floor. Her bra soon joins it and she’s standing before me in nothing but strappy stiletto sandals.

And my dick is rock-hard again.

Her eyes go immediately to my jutting erection and she guides her hand down to her pussy. She begins playing with her clit and my mouth immediately starts to water. What the fuck? Let me do that!

She opens the travel bottle and I soon realize that it’s some type of oil. She puts a little of it on her finger and returns it to her clit. She moans and drops her head back as she pleasures herself in front of me and Greystone starts to do a dance while watching her fondle that shaven jewel.

Fuck, she’s fucking cruel.

When her head rises again and her eyes meet mine, she steps next to me, holding the bottle over her shoulder upside down. I don’t have to see it to know that the oil is dripping down her back.

Stay calm, Grey.

Grey may be staying calm, but Greystone is animated and untamable.

She turns around and sits on my lap, discarding the empty bottle across the room to parts unknown. Her beautiful oily back is staring at me and the oil has rolled down to her beautiful and now oily ass. I can’t help it. I rub the oil into her skin and over her cheeks. She grinds over me and I bite my lip as her pussy lips glide over the outside of my erection.

Shit, the oil and the friction are almost too much.

I gently coat her rosette with the oil that has leaked there and push my thumb inside. She moans her pleasure and grinds harder.

Fuck, that doesn’t help.

Watching her hips roll on my dick with my thumb penetrating that delicious ass, I’m certain that she wants me to come this way. As soon as Greystone is hot and ready to blow, she stops her gyrations.

“Fuck!” I hiss as the sensation slowly eases away. She stands, my finger popping out of her asshole, and she turns around. She straddles me, facing me, but still not letting my dick into that luscious pussy. It’s erect behind her and she adjusts herself, her hands on my shoulders, so that’s it’s nestled between her oily ass cheeks.

“Aw, fuck,” I groan low as I take her hips in my hands. She moves just right, and my dick is rubbing between her ass cheeks.

“Fuck!” I bite out as I take a nipple in my mouth and suck hard, causing her to cry out.

“Ah! Christian!” That hip roll keeps going and I squeeze her cheeks, pushing them together so that they grip my dick as I torment her nipples, first one, then the other. I know I can make her come this way, and soon…

“Stop!” she cries, her voice tortured. She stops and I stop, and she fights for a moment to catch her breath. My pending orgasm ebbs away as she takes a brief reprieve, but her next move lets me know this round will soon be over.

After her momentary time-out, she reaches behind her and dexterously locates my aching cock, now oily from her ass. After stroking it a few times, she guides the tender head back to her ass… and her asshole.

Oh, shit.

I sit paralyzed as she manipulates and guides Greystone to one of his very, very favorite places. My breath catches when the head breaches her rosette. I bite my lip again, trying to prepare myself for the pleasure and not simply blow my load from the mere thought of what’s going on.

She rises and falls infinitesimally, working my cock into her ass and again, I have to concentrate on not coming. After a minute or so of glorious coercing, her tight ass finally accepts my aching shaft and she lays that beautiful body back on the ottoman.

She’s holding her ankles and riding my dick anally, laying back on this ottoman and spread out before me. Her lush tits are bouncing before me and she looks and feels fucking divine! Over and over, several minutes of torturing and tempting me with her tightest orifice. I’m going to come this way. There’s nothing I can do to stop it.

I grab her hips again and thrust up into her tight ass, short deep thrusts that massage my head and squeeze my cock and feels so good. She writhes on top of me and her body flushes. She bites her lip as that sheen of sweat shows up on her skin. If she comes, I’m right the fuck behind her so I might as well help her along.

I rub my thumb upward, repeatedly against that oily clit. It takes about a minute and her back is arching up, the top of her body suspended in orgasm and ecstasy and pushing her hips and ass against my dick. I thrust up into her a few more times and I’m hanging in yet another trembling orgasm, as intense as the first an hour or so ago.

“Fuck! Ana! Shit!” I cry out as I push myself into her clenching ass, gritting my teeth and pushing my head back into the chair as I swear brain matter is once again shooting from my cock. To this day, I have felt nothing like Anastasia’s ass and I’m certain that I’ll be out for the count as usual after that sweet, Valium-laced, anal session. I soon discover that my wife has other plans.

I am fucked, sucked, licked, gripped, and rubbed into complete oblivion for the better part of the early morning hours before my wife finally taps out and grants me reprieve somewhere around dawn. What the hell happened in that bathroom?

*-*

“Oh, I’ve missed my babies so much!”

The moment we walk into the house on Friday, Butterfly zeroes in on the twins. Mikey runs into his mother’s arms and Minnie, still not as balanced as Mikey, toddles over to my wife and they share a three way embrace that lasts for several long moments. I couldn’t get in on the love until she was ready to release one of them. She didn’t even take her coat off for a full twenty minutes.

We had decided to leave Las Vegas mid-afternoon on Friday as we knew that if the jury reached a verdict after 2:00pm, they wouldn’t be able to get everyone back in court in enough time to deliver it, and court wouldn’t be back in session until Monday. When we landed in Seattle and Allen checked his texts, it turns out that’s exactly what happened. Larson informed him that after asking to see the video three more times and reviewing Vincent Sullivan’s testimony twice, the jury had reached a verdict early Friday evening. We would have to be back in Vegas on Monday morning, and we’ll find out at that time when the sentencing will be… if there will be a sentencing.

As such, my wife threw herself into being Mommy from the moment we walked in the door. She normally dresses in what I would call office attire or business casual when we fly, but not on Friday. On Friday, she was all jeans, sweatshirt, and sneakers so that the moment she got home, she didn’t even have to change her clothes. She was right in the middle of the family-room floor with the kids and it was blankets and forts all weekend. We didn’t spend one night in our own bed.

I had learned that the 1914 Centennial Para Vintage Tawny blend had arrived from Barossa Valley on Thursday, and I was hoping to give it a whirl on Valentine’s Day, but nooooooo. Mrs. Grey had other plans. Mrs. Grey pointed out that we had been having wild sex the entire time we were in Las Vegas and that she now wanted to spend quality time with her children, knowing that we had to go back to that dreaded place again the next day. I remind her that it’s probably only going to be a day trip unless the sentencing is going to be this week and she reminds me that the Tawny blend will still be here when we get back. So, floor blankets and forts it is.

“Baby,” I ask while we’re preparing to catch the plane again on Sunday, “are you ever going to tell me what happened in that bathroom at Raku?” She sighs heavily and sits on the bed.

“There were a couple of women in the bathroom,” she says. “They saw me come in. They knew I was in the stall. They proceeded to talk major shit about me… major shit. I couldn’t even tell if they really knew who I was, but the six degrees of separation attached me to the blue dress from karaoke, and they knew the dress, and they knew you… or at least they knew your face.

“Whatever the case may be, they were just talking about how you looked too good to be with me and they were pointing things out like my big hips and I’m short… They brought up the blue dress and the fact that, ‘Well, at least this dress looks better than the blue one, but not by much.’” She’s mocking the girl’s words, so I know she was repeating them verbatim.

I opened the door and looked at them, and they’re standing at the sink glaring at me like, ‘Oh, you still here?’ They knew I was in there. They were deliberately picking a fight, and you know me! You know I could have given them one… but I was just so tired. I’m tired of people just not liking me or hating me or judging me for no reason. I’m tired of people expecting me to act a certain way or look a certain way or dress a certain way or be a certain way. I’m not Michelle Obama. I’m not required to greet everyone I see—smile and wave to the townsfolk when I arrive. I’m a young woman who just wants to live, and they won’t let me live!

“So, I was just tired. I looked at those women, and I had nothing—no snappy comebacks, no zingers, no cracks about their five-and-dime dresses and shoes, nothing. I just got the hell out of there. I didn’t even wash my hands.”

Oh, well that explains the hand sanitizer incident. I was wondering why she used so much.

“The entire time we were in the car, all I could think was, ‘When am I going to discover that someone doesn’t like me for something that I directly or deliberately did to them?’ Everybody that I’ve come in contact with so far doesn’t like me for some abstract bullshit or imagined wrongdoing, or some stupid shit like my big hips, I’m too short, and you’re too good for me. It was just more than I could bear at the moment.” I walk over to her and put my arms around her.

“You know that none of that matters to me, right?” I say, sincerely, while looking into her eyes.

“I know that, I do,” she says. “I’m just trying to find a way to deal with this shit. Every time I think I’ve got it under control, I can handle it, some dumb shit happens again and I’m back on the ledge again.”

I hold her close to me and try to comfort her, especially since we’re about to get back on the plane again to go back to Vegas. We’re just waiting for Lawrence to tell us that he has retrieved Ray and they and Allen will be meeting us at SeaTac. My pocket buzzes and I’m sure that it’s Jason calling to tell me that we’re ready to go. I retrieve my phone and swipe.

“Yeah?” I answer.

“Sir! Jesus! We’ve got a problem!” I furrow my brow.

“What? What is it?” I ask.

“I’ve called the police! I don’t know what we should be doing!” Jason is frantic. I’ve never seen him like this… or heard him like this.

“Take a breath, man. What are you talking about? Called the police about what?” I ask, trying to get him to calm down. I hear him swallow hard before he speaks.

“Carla Morton just drove her car off an overpass.” 

A/N: So, anyone who lives in Vegas knows that Sunset Park doesn’t really have trees in a marsh like that—there are trees, but not enough for a car to get lost in. Hell, nowhere that I know of in Vegas has trees like that accessible to a vehicle since we’re sitting smack on top of the desert, but I took a bit of creative license here.

Pictures of places, cars, fashion, etc., can be found at https://www.pinterest.com/ladeeceo/grey-continued-misadventuresseason-v/

Pictures from the trip to Las Vegas can be found at https://www.pinterest.com/ladeeceo/grey-continued-las-vegas/

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