The Shades of Grey – Narrow Escape
Short Fiction Stories on Love
Plot – Anastasia, ‘Ana’ is a 21 year old college senior, a young petite girl with green eyes and brown hair going upto her waist. She is a typical Russian with pointed chin and skinny eyebrows that make up for the average skin tone and medium stature.
Despite her composed and ambitious streak, she strangely gets attracted to 27 year old Christian Grey, a Seattle entrepreneur. The young tall American Adonis has strong physical appeal for his grey penetrating eyes and sharp jaw line. He has something magnetizing in an otherwise pragmatic air that immediately drew naive Ana to fall for him. As the several meetings followed between two of them, they developed a strong secret bond of physical intimacy shoving Ana into Grey’s uncharted sensual world.
***
The wide atrium of Grey’s lucrative house has been transformed into a party hall adorned with chandeliers and flower decorations. All business elites and aristocrats from nearby cities have been invited. Ana had been looking for Grey but he is nowhere to be seen. Suddenly, the contents of her drink spill on her dress as she collides with a gentleman while making her way through the crowd.
Ana, long lost in his green shining eyes nervously asks to be excused. But the man starts gently scrubbing the drink off her gown with his handkerchief. His hands pressing against her belly send current waves down her body. He asks her to join him at the dinner table.
“Hi! I am John Wilson. You seem to be in hurry Ms…?”
“Anastasia Steele.”
He turns out to be a handsome Irish industrialist whose business channels expand to few American cities including New York. Ana sits in the nearby lounge opposite to John when suddenly Grey appears from the crowd and takes the seat adjacent to Ana. The two men greet each other with gentlemanly smile while their eyes indicate an innate kind of distaste for each other lurking inside.
While the two gentlemen briefly confabulate over business, a part of Ana is upset with her clandestine relationship with Grey. Initially, it appeared to be an adventure but for the last two years, Grey would keep her away from his personal life except the time when he would come yearning for sensual pleasure. Opposite to their initial agreement, Ana did not quite know when she started searching for love and stability in this pointless relationship.
The man sitting opposite to Ana says, “Ms. Steele! A beautiful woman like you should not be sad!”
“She is not sad, Mr…Mr..?” Grey retorts at the stranger.
“Wilson. John Wilson.” Says the man with a hint of contempt. “Reaching a woman’s heart is not a piece of cake Mr. Grey”. He turns towards Anastasia. “And I can read your heart…Ana!”
Her heart does a flip to hear him call with her first name. For Grey, the situation makes the beast in him roar to its ferocity with which his hand reaches over Ana’s back discreetly and clutches her delicate skin exposing in the backless gown.It was not the first time Grey had turned furious at the briefest of encounter of his girlfriend with another man. At times like this, he becomes desperate to get whole of Ana like a caged animal whose wilderness springs out once unleashed. He uses her for his sordid gratification and throws her in the corner like an unwanted piece of trash.
Ana stays there in the couch indecisive, fidgeting subtly under throes of pain, stirred by the blend of torrential feelings. It is this pain which gives her a sense of desperation and longing to which she has been quite so addicted.
Her eyes meet John’s which too, beyond comprehension betray a sense of pain and anger as if he can see everything going on. Then her eyes close as Grey’s hand digs deeper against her skin.
The new man gets up abruptly, as if in a fit of anxiety. He looks down at Grey with wild loathing and shakes hands with Ana. “Wish to see you soon, Ms. Seetle!”
He disappears back in the crowd when Ana secretly opens the piece of paper the man had left in her hand. It read, “Room no. 345”.
***
Ana knows what Grey wants at this moment. His wild instincts ready to gnaw at her body which she has grown inured to with time. She is prepared for this. She has always been. But now, holding the piece of paper in her hand, what she must do?
