Page 127 of Release

I think for sure Ellen will be horrified by what I did, but when I finish telling my story, starting with the years of molestation and rape that led to me finally snapping that dark and stormy night, she rolls on top of me, kisses me, and we make love again.

I don’t know if that night is the true start to her belonging to me, but it feels like it. I was “in charge” of us from that moment on. She naturally defers to me over nearly everything, with two standing conditions from her.

No one,especiallyher family, can ever know about us being romantically involved with each other.

And that, one day, if she falls in love with a guy, she’ll end what we have because she wants children, wants to get married, wants to be a mom.

I agree because I guess I think maybe I can love her fear away. That I can be the person she realizes ten years from now is her ride-or-die, literally.

That no one else matters but the two of us.

We do everything together—she loses her virginity to me in more ways than one, because I’m not too ashamed to walk into an adult store and buy a strap-on. She becomes my slave, craving spankings and other fun torture.

I naively think if I can take her far enough down that rabbit hole, of completely belonging to me, it won’t matter who else she meets because she’ll only want me. And no guy will be able to give her everything else that she needs, like the control, the discipline, the spankings and sexy, sinful play that is the only thing she can really get off on.

I give her unconditional love and awesome sex that would make Satan himself clutch his damn pearls.

After two years together, I fail miserably, in my mind. Because then she meets one George Samson Forrester and falls head over heels in love with the handsome, sweet, blue-eyed motherfucker.

I do everything in my power to try to interfere, short of throwing him out of our apartment.

Except I love her, and I truly want her to be happy. He finally proves himself to me, and, thankfully, Ellen was patient with me, knowing how much this hurt me.

I try to move on. I really do.

Except I can’t.

I never can.

And as I fall apart in Carter’s arms in a rental car in the Philippines, with that horrific last image of my girl forever imprinted in my mind, even then I know I can never release her. Not even to death.

Because youneverforget your first.

Because she wasminefirst, and she’llalwaysbe first in my heart and soul.

Always.