Fifty Shades of Grey(79)

Kate looks wistful.

"Yeah, took almost a year to have my first orgasm through penetrative sex and here you are... first time?"

I nod shyly. My inner goddess sits in the lotus position looking serene except for the sly, self-congratulatory smile on her face.

"I'm glad you lost it to someone who knows their ass from their elbow." She winks at me. "So when are you seeing him again?"

"Wednesday. We're having dinner."

"So you still like him?"

"Yes. But I don't know about... the future."

"Why?"

"He's complicated, Kate. You know - he inhabits a very different world to mine."

Great excuse. Believable too. Much better than - he's got a Red Room of Pain, and he wants to make me his sex slave.

"Oh please, don't let this be about money, Ana. Elliot said it's very unusual for Christian to date anyone."

"Did he?" My voice hitches up several octaves.

Too obvious, Steele! My subconscious glares at me, wagging her long skinny finger, then morphs into the scales of justice to remind me he could sue if I disclose too much.

Ha... what's he going to do - take all my money I must remember to Google 'penalties for breaching a non-disclosure agreement' while I'm doing the rest of my 'research'. It's like I've been given a school assignment. Maybe I'll be graded. I flush, remembering my A for this morning's bath experiment.

"Ana, what is it?"

"I'm just remembering something Christian said."

"You look different," Kate says fondly.

"I feel different. Sore," I confess.

"Sore?"

"A little." I flush.

"Me too. Men," she says in mock disgust. "They're animals." We both laugh.

"You're sore?" I exclaim.

"Yes... overuse."

I giggle.

"Tell me about Elliot the over-user," I ask when I've stopped giggling. Oh, I can feel myself relaxing for the first time since I was in line at the bar... before the phone call that started all this - when I was admiring Mr. Grey from afar. Happy uncomplicated days.

Kate blushes. Oh my... Katherine Agnes Kavanagh goes all Anastasia Rose Steele on me. She gives me a dewy-eyed look. I've never seen her react this way to a man before.

My jaw drops to the floor. Where's Kate, what have you done with her?

"Oh, Ana," she gushes. "He's just so... Everything. And when we... oh... really good." She can hardly string a sentence together she's got it so bad.

"I think you're trying to tell me that you like him."

She nods, grinning like a lunatic.

"And I'm seeing him on Saturday. He's going to help us move." She clasps her hands together, leaps up off the couch, and pirouettes to the window. Moving. Crap - I'd forgotten all about that, even with the packing cases surrounding us.

"That's helpful of him," I say appreciatively. I can get to know him too. Perhaps he can give me more insight into his strange, disturbing brother.

"So what did you do last night?" I ask. She cocks her head at me and raises her eyebrows in a what-do-think-stupid-look.

"Pretty much what you did, though we had dinner first." She grins at me. "Are you okay reallyYou look kind of overwhelmed."

"I feel overwhelmed. Christian is very intense."

"Yeah, I could see how he could be. But he was good to you?"

"Yes," I reassure her. "I'm really hungry, shall I cook?"