When I was a boy, a small boy I was often left alone to my own devices. My mother was either on the street corner looking for her next buck, or in her room with the door closed earning her next buck. We didn't have a TV and the radio was in her bedroom, usually turned up loud to block out the moans. The crack whore always loved Fleetwood Mac Rumors; I can't even here a chord of Go Your Own Way to this very day.

I used to play this game where I would line up all my toys on our window sill. I had my matchbox cars, my G.I. Joe and Leonardo my prized Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle. I would line them up perfectly straight, the breeze blowing in to our small apartment, a mix of fumes from the passing busses, cigarettes from the old men playing cards on the sidewalk and the yeasty aroma from the pizza place down the street.

The game was simple and the rule was singular. Stand still. I would stand there, as still as possible for as long as I could; sometimes on one foot, or after spinning around over and over. If I would move, even just a little bit I would push my toys just a bit closer to the edge. This game could last for minutes or hours depending on my will and attention span. They would often fall three stories down and I would run down the stairs to retrieve them, now more battered and often more broken than before.

It was always Leonardo that I pushed first and farthest, maybe because he meant the most to me. It was the only toy I remember that was new and where I got to tear open the plastic package. Everything else came second hand, used and abused. But Leonardo was fresh and new, all of his cracks were mine.

I keep pushing Ana from the window, over and over frantically running down the staircase to retrieve her. Today was the closest I had come to losing her, really losing her but I couldn't stop myself. The idea, the unimaginable idea of a child, my child is just too much. But I made Ana a promise and I intend to keep it, I can do this. I can be the man she wants and needs me to be. I can stand still forever if I have to.

Right now she is in my arms, curled up in my lap on the floor of my parent's kitchen. Her bag is packed sitting beside us and I feel the weight of it on my heart because I know despite my apology and promise she is still going to leave. I crossed a line today and I will have to earn my way back. She is a better person then I. When she crossed the line with Jose my goal was to punish her, to make her feel how I felt helpless. She will leave but her goal is to protect herself. The idea she needs protection from me makes my stomach turn. My goal in life is to keep Ana safe.

With one hand I push us both off the floor, Ana wrapping her arms tightly around my neck, her lips brushing against the base of my throat. I gather my arms under her rear and slide them behind her knees, holding her against my body and carry her through the French doors out to the yard. The air is cool and fresh and clean, the grass is still wet with the morning dew as I forgo the meandering stone path and make a straight line to the boat house.

I need to have Ana alone, I need to feel her under my body and remind her that I am here and we are real. I need to show her who I really am and what I want to be.

I practically kick the door open; the air in the boathouse is dry and stale, the sunlight peaking through the shuttered windows. I was seven when we first moved here from Detroit and this boathouse was my safe place where I could come and be left alone. Under the third floor board to from the left you will find my Leonardo laid to rest along with a few other relics from my childhood. I don't know why I keep them but I just like knowing that they are there.

"Christian… I am still leaving… I can't stay here. We need…" I silence her with a soft kiss, her lips so soft and they fit perfectly against mine. Like her lower lip was molded in her DNA to fit between the bow of my own. She moans against my chin and I rub my nose against hers.

"I know, Ana. I fucked up. You can't go back to your apartment though. I will have Taylor find you a hotel close by… but you're here now. I promise I will fix this." I take her hand in mine and kiss the finger where our engagement right once lived. It's still sitting on the cold marble in the kitchen. "We will begin again… here…"

"No past mistakes?"

"None…"

"But we can keep all the good things?"

"Every single one."

"I like this Chris…" I wince at my nickname, the first lie I ever told her. I shake my head as she chuckles and kisses me on the corner of my mouth. "You scared me today…"

"I scared myself today Ana. The thought of you leaving, I can't take that." I sit down on the bed, Ana still in my arms; I can't let her go, not yet.

"What did you mean everyone dies? I know your mother died but who else?" I close my eyes and like a movie I see Leila… You need to change Christian…the gun… the smell of gun powder in the air. The look on my father's face when he found me sitting on the ground outside of the hotel room. Shame, all I feel is shame and regret. "Christian… Christian…Where did you go just now?" Her voice call me out of my waking dream and I focus on Ana, my port in the storm.

"Do you think when people die violently or even quietly by their own that they ever find peace? I don't believe in god and all of that, I never could. I believe in things you see and hold and know. But I wonder if you're a tortured soul on earth, if you're a tortured soul after earth…I wonder… I had sub…Her name was Leila, and she loved me, she wanted more from me then I was willing to give. In her last moments, I was the person she reached out to, the person who she thought could help her. But I couldn't and when she died my face was the last thing she saw and my voice was the last thing she heard. Fuck her last words were about me. I mean can you imagine, in the midst of her pain, she was tell me to live a better life. I think my denial set her on a path and I wonder about the other fourteen, if I put them on a similar path, or maybe they were already on it and maybe I am too… And what keeps me up at night, is something you said to me a while back. I told you that I was on a dark path, and you looked at me with teary blue eyes and innocence and hope and love and you said that's the path I am on and that that path you will follow. You deserve another path Ana." She deserves a path with a normal sane man, who will love her and give her children, a man who won't want to possess her and deep down control her in every way. A man that won't crave her pain and her submission.

"Christian, you know I don't know anything about love or relationships that I haven't learned from you. I can't speak to Leila, or the fourteen others, I can't erase those memories. But I think you loved them, maybe you weren't aware of it, or capable of dealing with it. But the reason they wanted more, the reason they fell in love with you is because you are an amazing, amazing man. Are you fucked up? Yes…" She starts to giggle through the tears in her eyes and has never looked more beautiful or more mine. "You are totally fucking crazy Christian but in that there is this amazing beauty, this light that comes from your darkness. That's why she came to you, because you wouldn't judge her. She felt safe with you. I feel safe with you and maybe you didn't treat them the way they deserved to be treated and yes that makes you a huge asshole but baby - when you know better you do better."

"I only knew better when I met you. It was like I saw you on a video camera and my heart started to beat. In that moment everything became clear, you know I felt alive and I hadn't even met you yet."

"I didn't know that."

"There is so much you don't know, but I want to tell you."

"I love you Christian. I love you more than life. I love you."

"I love you too Ana… always and forever mine…I don't deserve you, I don't think I ever will but I am selfish and I need you. I want you. Will you marry me Ana, when we are ready will you spend the rest of your life with me?" Her bottom lip quivers, as she takes my hands in hers, kissing the finger that will one day bear my wedding ring.

"Yes Christian, of course yes..." I press me lips to hers, and feel like I can breathe for the first time all day. I could kiss this woman for infinity, and be contented. I feel her hands at my waist pulling and tugging on my sweatshirt. She eases off my lap and I am finally able to let her go, but only because I know in a few short moments I will be home inside of her. I stand beside her and we slowly begin to undress, our eyes never parting. Every woman is perfect and every woman is flawed, over the years I have seen woman's bodies from every angle and vantage point but there is something transcendent about Ana's form. Yes, she is perfect, not a flaw to be seen by the naked eye but perfection aside I see her and the light the streams out of each and every pore and that's all I really see. The need to fuck her comes from that, I want to absorb her light and love and that is the best way I know how.

I grab her by the waist and pull her towards me, I need this so much, my cock is not even hard yet because right now the erection is living in my mind. Her breasts fit perfectly in my palms, as I massage them until they are heavy and the nipples hard. Ana head hands back slightly and I press my lips to the hollow of her throat, working my way down until the tight bud of her nipple tickles the roof of my mouth. I know I can make her come like this, the perfect blend pressure, suction and anticipation but today I need her to come with me, for me, around me. She fists her fingers in my hair, and pulls my lips to hers; she dominates this kiss sucking on my tongue, biting my lower lip. I like the domination and my cock likes it too. She reaches down and gently strokes my cock that is now as full attention. I groan, all my control gone. My fingers find her seam and weave in and out of her, my thumb flicking her taught clit as she bucks against my fingers, muttering my name. I can feel her start to crest and fall off the edge.

"Ana, baby… Lay down on the bed…I need to be inside of you." She steps back and slides up on the bed, her legs open lazily in wait for me. I just stand there, still so still for a moment and take her in. God I am a lucky man. I ease my body over hers; my cock is heavy and aching.

I have never made love until Ana and even when I fuck her I do it with love. But today, here in this place, that was once my place and is now our place I will make to love her and she to me.

I ease inside of her, Ana's hips rising to meet me, a tandem moan escaping our lips, like a quenching thirst for each other. The feel of Ana around me is so pure and perfect that I can bear to move; I just want this to last forever.

"Christian please…" I love it when she begs for me, when her need is so great that her body can't wait another second. I start a slow rhythm, not filling her to the end, leaving that for later. Every motion and stroke is deliberate and hits its target with precision. I know her body as well as my piano, every nerve is a white key, every hidden place is a black one. Ana is my Concerto no. 1 and I am Tchaikovsky.

Time slips away, and we ebb and flow as one. The sweat slick on our bodies, her moans etching their way into my soul, Ana's nails digging into my ass as I pound into her hitting her where life begins. She screams out and everything stills inside of her and then the fall begins. Biting on her lower lip her walls devour me, pulling me to the edge of this dream. I come, deep inside of her, and explosion breaking free of my own body. I feel it run through me like an electrical current, heat and pain, pleasure and release. It is fucking insane and intense, for a moment I forget who I am and lose all rational control, her name emanates from deep inside my chest and comes out as a roar.

I fall against her not an ounce of energy left, she is panting in my ear, still quivering around me. And then I hear it, applause and whistles, laughter and cheers coming from outside. Ana's eyes go wide and her mouth drops open

"Wooohhh Hoooo Little bro! Get her done!" Ana bursts out laughing, shaking beneath me.

"FUCK OFF ELLIOTT!"