[YnM/50 Shades of Grey] "Six Degrees of Separation" (R)
Author's Note: Written for Fifty Shades of Gray/any, Chrristian/any male character, Christian is gay and attempts to make an arrangement with a man that somehow becomes so much more Kazutaka Muraki/Christian Grey. This pairing had to happen... Also, there's somewhat of an experimental quality to the writing.
An interminable meeting involving a merger between a Japanese pharmaceutical company and their American competitor, now their sister-company in a state of becoming. The board members on the one side of the table looked like the archetypal men of business that they were, clad in their suits in nearly uniform shades of black and dark brown, their faces calm, their hair in shades of black and black turning to grey neatly trimmed and combed back. But on the far end, sitting almost casually in his chair, was one man in white with a dove-grey shirt, his iron-grey tie knotted with precision at his slim, white throat, his silver-white hair combed out, long and loose over one eye, the other, grey and with an odd reptilian look to it, peering out through his fringe and the lens of his rimless glasses. He seemed assured of the success of the negotiations, so assured that Christian thought he sensed the man -- the one scientist of the group, a genetic researcher named Muraki -- eying him with more than mere attentiveness. That gaze was one of attention and intention, as if he were interested in proposing a merger of a different kind, without saying a word of the kind which had no place in the boardroom. At least, not in front of the others.
* * * *
"It's a pleasure to meet you, Muraki-sensei," Christian said, forming the Japanese syllables with care as he bowed to the scientist.
The pale man cracked a smile which did not quite reach his one visible eye, before returning the bow. "You know Japanese? You pronounce it well," he said, in perfect English, with a hint of of an Oxford-trained British accent that managed to blend with his clipped Tokyo accent. "And you're better about etiquette than...many of your countrymen."
"I trained myself well, the better to make this meeting run smoothly for everyone," he said.
"Indeed: it is all part of the ritual, isn't it?"
"The ritual? You sound like a priest of some kind," Christian said, with a gentle chuckle.
"Ritual is a part of our culture, in my country, Mr. Grey, and you might be surprised at how much ritual is in your own. But we'll talk of this another time, shall we?"
"I'd be delighted."
* * * *
The obligatory cocktail party that followed, the kind that, while celebratory, went on for more hours than Christian could stand. Another ritual? Christian thought. If it was, it was a form of ritualized torture and not the kind he preferred.
All night, he had been mingling with the guests, chatting politely, but keeping one drink in hand, with a little bit of wine still in the glass, the level never dropping. But in truth, he wanted to be quit of this place, to find someone to share the hotel suite he'd hired for the night in case he'd found some company for the night.
He'd wandered to one of the windows of the dining room, looking out over the city, the lights of the buildings spread out below them. A reflection moved in the darkened glass beside his and he looked up into Muraki's pale face.
"Musing over the city?" the foreigner asked.
"It would be more enjoyable if I had someone to share the view," Christian admitted.
"I'm at your disposal," Muraki said, turning to face him just as Christian did.
"From the looks you were giving me during the meeting, I'd think you'd wanted to share a more private view," Christian said, lowering his voice slightly.
A smirk, almost shark-like in its cruelty, except that he did not show his teeth, crossed the taller man's face. "I was hoping that you'd picked up on my signals," he said. "The sacred sign of our secret society."
"My apartment is nearby, if you'd care to join me."
Muraki glanced into the glass. "Let me make my farewells first, then join me in the lobby: it wouldn't do if my colleagues saw us leave together," he said, hardly moving his thin but still sensuous lips.
"That works," Christian said, respecting the other man's privacy.
* * * *
He circulated through the crowd, exchanging pleasantaries, creating a cushion of time and space before he made his way out of the function room, out into the hallway, then down the elevator and the vestibule and the parking valet's stand.
He stepped out onto the street, looking for Muraki, seeing him nowhere.
And then he saw the light of a steetlamp flare on something white; he followed that light, finding it shone on Muraki's pale form, which seemed to fluoresce on his light hair and his white garments.
The man took a Zippo-style lighter from his breast pocket, clanked it open and lit a cigarette, the light flaring on his lean face. A smoker... he would have preferred otherwise, since nicotine tended to get into every pore of a person's body and smokers didn't tend to have the stamina he required, but at least the tobacco did not smell of a cheap brand.
Christian approached him. "You know how to make an eye-catching tableau," he said.
Muraki smiled. "I'm somewhat of an artist, as well as a scientist," he said.
"I hope you're a very talented one," Christian said, as the valet pulled up with his car.
* * * *
Up in his penthouse, seated on the sofa, each nursing a glass of scotch. At this range, the other man looked much younger than he'd thought: his portfolio indicated that he was well into his forties, and from behind, he could pass for a robust sixty, but his face suggested that he was only in his early thirties. In this light, his skin looked as smooth as porcelain, a skin that a woman would envy.
"How long do you plan to stay in the city?" Christian asked.
"I shall be here for at least a month or two, overseeing the set-up of the new laboratory. Why, might I ask, do you wish to know?"
"I was wondering if, perhaps, you would be interested in forming an arrangement with me."
A smirk crossed the pale man's face. "I would be interested, though we would need to maintain a certain discretion."
"I know a few things about that," he said, returning the smile. "Shall I show you?"
Muraki lifted one hand in assent. "By all means."
Christian set his glass on a coffeetable, then rose and lead him from the front room to the door to the "playroom". He unlocked the door and held it open, letting his companion enter first.
Muraki stepped through, pausing at the middle of the room and looking about him, stroking his chin, a small smile quirking at the corners of his mouth.
"Hmmm, I'd say you have a very well-equipped chamber," he said, reaching up to run a hand over the St. Andrew's Cross. "I know I'd enjoy it here."
"Good, it's not often that I find someone so inclined, much less interested or possessing similar tastes," Christian admitted, feeling his heart quicken, just at the though. "So, shall we play?"
The taller man bowed to him, deeply. "Any time that you wish, Master Grey: take me as hard as you please."
Master, the word alone was blood in the water to Grey's inner shark. He grabbed the taller man's chin and yanked him upright, planting a crushing kiss on his mouth. He felt the other grow pliable under his touch.
It was short work relieving the older man of his suit and the silk shirt under it. Stripped, he had the slim, supple body of a danseur in his twenties: gracefully musclef and lean, just north of being considered skinny. Broad shoulders and a wide chest tapering to a slim waist and narrow hips.
But he noticed something that infuriated him: a proud twist of a smirk on the other's face.
"Oh, don't smile at me like that," Christian snarled. "I'll wipe it off for you."
"What smile?" Muraki asked, with phony innocence.
* * * *
Another stroke of the deerskin flogger, and the pale man went slack against his restraints. limp as a ragdoll. Christian released the shackles; Muraki sagged against him, his good eye rolled back in his head. Christian managed to stagger to the bed, half-carrying, half-dragging the inert man before managing to haul him onto the leather-covered mattress.
He felt under Muraki's jaw: it beat, hard but steady, not quite racing, but close to that.
"Wake you, you lazy loafer," Christian snapped, slapping Muraki's cheeks. The man did not respond, lying there, unmoving.
Christian got up, going for the sal volatile in the first aid he kept hidden in a trunk. Returning to the bed, he opened the jar of strong-smelling salts and waved it under the pale man's nostrils. He contemplated finding Muraki's cigarette lighter and flicking it on under the taller man's ear, but he'd gone far enough. The man needed aftercare, not more pain.
A chuckle rippled in Muraki's throat. Christian held the jar smelling salts away, looking into his face.
"Are you awake? You can do more than chuckle," he demanded.
Muraki chuckled again, louder and with a slightly unsettling note, as if man might have gone giddy from the pain.
"You... really had... no idea," he murmured.
"You're alert?" Christian demanded.
"I'm made... of sterner stuff than my appearance would suggest," Muraki purred, drawing himself together.
It happened faster than Christian expected: One moment, Muraki gathered himself like a cat ready to pounce, the next moment, Christian lay sprawled on his own back, Muraki above him, holding him down by sitting on Christian's chest, while he shackled Christian to the bed.
"What are you doin?" Christian demanded, his chest constricted between the other's thighs, the musk of the other's flesh filling his nostrils.
"Returning the favor," Muraki replied. "Or at least getting a taste of you."
"What do you mean?" Christian demanded.
Muraki looked him, eyes on his face, his good eye narrowed yet ardent, the glass eye burning with a blue light that did not come from anywhere else in the room. "The rite isn't over yet: you had your communion of pain and sweat and a little blood. But it's my turn now, for the communion of seed and spirit," he said, sliding downward before holding Christian's thighs apart, as he crouched over the younger man's groin.
What manner of man was he, or was he even a human? Christian wondered, skin tingling, senses wrapt. Normally he would object to being in this position, but somehow he could not bring himself to try pushing the other man away.
A scent like incense burning seemed to envelope them both, and the lights seemed to dim, as the pale figure kneeling over him, nuzzling his groin and licking at his shaft had sucked the light into himself.
An interminable meeting involving a merger between a Japanese pharmaceutical company and their American competitor, now their sister-company in a state of becoming. The board members on the one side of the table looked like the archetypal men of business that they were, clad in their suits in nearly uniform shades of black and dark brown, their faces calm, their hair in shades of black and black turning to grey neatly trimmed and combed back. But on the far end, sitting almost casually in his chair, was one man in white with a dove-grey shirt, his iron-grey tie knotted with precision at his slim, white throat, his silver-white hair combed out, long and loose over one eye, the other, grey and with an odd reptilian look to it, peering out through his fringe and the lens of his rimless glasses. He seemed assured of the success of the negotiations, so assured that Christian thought he sensed the man -- the one scientist of the group, a genetic researcher named Muraki -- eying him with more than mere attentiveness. That gaze was one of attention and intention, as if he were interested in proposing a merger of a different kind, without saying a word of the kind which had no place in the boardroom. At least, not in front of the others.
* * * *
"It's a pleasure to meet you, Muraki-sensei," Christian said, forming the Japanese syllables with care as he bowed to the scientist.
The pale man cracked a smile which did not quite reach his one visible eye, before returning the bow. "You know Japanese? You pronounce it well," he said, in perfect English, with a hint of of an Oxford-trained British accent that managed to blend with his clipped Tokyo accent. "And you're better about etiquette than...many of your countrymen."
"I trained myself well, the better to make this meeting run smoothly for everyone," he said.
"Indeed: it is all part of the ritual, isn't it?"
"The ritual? You sound like a priest of some kind," Christian said, with a gentle chuckle.
"Ritual is a part of our culture, in my country, Mr. Grey, and you might be surprised at how much ritual is in your own. But we'll talk of this another time, shall we?"
"I'd be delighted."
* * * *
The obligatory cocktail party that followed, the kind that, while celebratory, went on for more hours than Christian could stand. Another ritual? Christian thought. If it was, it was a form of ritualized torture and not the kind he preferred.
All night, he had been mingling with the guests, chatting politely, but keeping one drink in hand, with a little bit of wine still in the glass, the level never dropping. But in truth, he wanted to be quit of this place, to find someone to share the hotel suite he'd hired for the night in case he'd found some company for the night.
He'd wandered to one of the windows of the dining room, looking out over the city, the lights of the buildings spread out below them. A reflection moved in the darkened glass beside his and he looked up into Muraki's pale face.
"Musing over the city?" the foreigner asked.
"It would be more enjoyable if I had someone to share the view," Christian admitted.
"I'm at your disposal," Muraki said, turning to face him just as Christian did.
"From the looks you were giving me during the meeting, I'd think you'd wanted to share a more private view," Christian said, lowering his voice slightly.
A smirk, almost shark-like in its cruelty, except that he did not show his teeth, crossed the taller man's face. "I was hoping that you'd picked up on my signals," he said. "The sacred sign of our secret society."
"My apartment is nearby, if you'd care to join me."
Muraki glanced into the glass. "Let me make my farewells first, then join me in the lobby: it wouldn't do if my colleagues saw us leave together," he said, hardly moving his thin but still sensuous lips.
"That works," Christian said, respecting the other man's privacy.
* * * *
He circulated through the crowd, exchanging pleasantaries, creating a cushion of time and space before he made his way out of the function room, out into the hallway, then down the elevator and the vestibule and the parking valet's stand.
He stepped out onto the street, looking for Muraki, seeing him nowhere.
And then he saw the light of a steetlamp flare on something white; he followed that light, finding it shone on Muraki's pale form, which seemed to fluoresce on his light hair and his white garments.
The man took a Zippo-style lighter from his breast pocket, clanked it open and lit a cigarette, the light flaring on his lean face. A smoker... he would have preferred otherwise, since nicotine tended to get into every pore of a person's body and smokers didn't tend to have the stamina he required, but at least the tobacco did not smell of a cheap brand.
Christian approached him. "You know how to make an eye-catching tableau," he said.
Muraki smiled. "I'm somewhat of an artist, as well as a scientist," he said.
"I hope you're a very talented one," Christian said, as the valet pulled up with his car.
* * * *
Up in his penthouse, seated on the sofa, each nursing a glass of scotch. At this range, the other man looked much younger than he'd thought: his portfolio indicated that he was well into his forties, and from behind, he could pass for a robust sixty, but his face suggested that he was only in his early thirties. In this light, his skin looked as smooth as porcelain, a skin that a woman would envy.
"How long do you plan to stay in the city?" Christian asked.
"I shall be here for at least a month or two, overseeing the set-up of the new laboratory. Why, might I ask, do you wish to know?"
"I was wondering if, perhaps, you would be interested in forming an arrangement with me."
A smirk crossed the pale man's face. "I would be interested, though we would need to maintain a certain discretion."
"I know a few things about that," he said, returning the smile. "Shall I show you?"
Muraki lifted one hand in assent. "By all means."
Christian set his glass on a coffeetable, then rose and lead him from the front room to the door to the "playroom". He unlocked the door and held it open, letting his companion enter first.
Muraki stepped through, pausing at the middle of the room and looking about him, stroking his chin, a small smile quirking at the corners of his mouth.
"Hmmm, I'd say you have a very well-equipped chamber," he said, reaching up to run a hand over the St. Andrew's Cross. "I know I'd enjoy it here."
"Good, it's not often that I find someone so inclined, much less interested or possessing similar tastes," Christian admitted, feeling his heart quicken, just at the though. "So, shall we play?"
The taller man bowed to him, deeply. "Any time that you wish, Master Grey: take me as hard as you please."
Master, the word alone was blood in the water to Grey's inner shark. He grabbed the taller man's chin and yanked him upright, planting a crushing kiss on his mouth. He felt the other grow pliable under his touch.
It was short work relieving the older man of his suit and the silk shirt under it. Stripped, he had the slim, supple body of a danseur in his twenties: gracefully musclef and lean, just north of being considered skinny. Broad shoulders and a wide chest tapering to a slim waist and narrow hips.
But he noticed something that infuriated him: a proud twist of a smirk on the other's face.
"Oh, don't smile at me like that," Christian snarled. "I'll wipe it off for you."
"What smile?" Muraki asked, with phony innocence.
* * * *
Another stroke of the deerskin flogger, and the pale man went slack against his restraints. limp as a ragdoll. Christian released the shackles; Muraki sagged against him, his good eye rolled back in his head. Christian managed to stagger to the bed, half-carrying, half-dragging the inert man before managing to haul him onto the leather-covered mattress.
He felt under Muraki's jaw: it beat, hard but steady, not quite racing, but close to that.
"Wake you, you lazy loafer," Christian snapped, slapping Muraki's cheeks. The man did not respond, lying there, unmoving.
Christian got up, going for the sal volatile in the first aid he kept hidden in a trunk. Returning to the bed, he opened the jar of strong-smelling salts and waved it under the pale man's nostrils. He contemplated finding Muraki's cigarette lighter and flicking it on under the taller man's ear, but he'd gone far enough. The man needed aftercare, not more pain.
A chuckle rippled in Muraki's throat. Christian held the jar smelling salts away, looking into his face.
"Are you awake? You can do more than chuckle," he demanded.
Muraki chuckled again, louder and with a slightly unsettling note, as if man might have gone giddy from the pain.
"You... really had... no idea," he murmured.
"You're alert?" Christian demanded.
"I'm made... of sterner stuff than my appearance would suggest," Muraki purred, drawing himself together.
It happened faster than Christian expected: One moment, Muraki gathered himself like a cat ready to pounce, the next moment, Christian lay sprawled on his own back, Muraki above him, holding him down by sitting on Christian's chest, while he shackled Christian to the bed.
"What are you doin?" Christian demanded, his chest constricted between the other's thighs, the musk of the other's flesh filling his nostrils.
"Returning the favor," Muraki replied. "Or at least getting a taste of you."
"What do you mean?" Christian demanded.
Muraki looked him, eyes on his face, his good eye narrowed yet ardent, the glass eye burning with a blue light that did not come from anywhere else in the room. "The rite isn't over yet: you had your communion of pain and sweat and a little blood. But it's my turn now, for the communion of seed and spirit," he said, sliding downward before holding Christian's thighs apart, as he crouched over the younger man's groin.
What manner of man was he, or was he even a human? Christian wondered, skin tingling, senses wrapt. Normally he would object to being in this position, but somehow he could not bring himself to try pushing the other man away.
A scent like incense burning seemed to envelope them both, and the lights seemed to dim, as the pale figure kneeling over him, nuzzling his groin and licking at his shaft had sucked the light into himself.