Chapter Seventeen Bully Basher #2
At first glance, Robbie and I were complete opposites—me, the slight, fair-haired waif, him, the muscle-bound athlete whose body was covered in a silky carpet of dark fur.
But we fit together. I felt like a different Jenna when I was with Robbie.
I’d never met anyone like him. When we made love for the first time, he asked me something no other person had ever asked: what I did and didn’t like in bed.
As it turned out, there were lots of things I didn’t like, things that reminded me of past, nonconsensual encounters.
But I didn’t share that with Robbie yet.
I still believed that my role was to focus on my partner’s pleasure, not my own.
My understanding of loving and feeling loved was extremely limited.
For so long, I had only been seen as “good” if I did what was required of me, no matter how painful or upsetting.
Now here came a man who claimed he didn’t require me to do anything.
He wanted me to be myself, he said. I didn’t admit it to Robbie then, but it had been years since I knew who “myself” was.
Part of me was stuck in time, as if still a little girl.
I knew I felt safe when I was with Robbie, though, and I hadn’t experienced safety since I was six years old and sitting atop Alice.
Robbie asked more questions about Epstein and Maxwell.
How often did they check in on me? How soon was I expected to return to the United States?
I remember I was crying as I told him I wasn’t sure how I could ever break free from Epstein and Maxwell’s web.
But Robbie shook his head. “You don’t have to live that way,” he said, taking my hand.
“Come back to Australia with me.” A week into knowing each other, he dropped down onto one knee and proposed.
“You won’t be rich,” Robbie told me, “but I will work hard to support you. I’ll never hurt you.
Never betray you. I’ll be here for you and always love you.
I’ll have your back until we die.” I’d never thought I’d hear those words from anyone, and as I told him yes, happy tears ran down my cheeks. “I love you, too,” I said.
Some people, when they hear our story, marvel at how quickly we moved after that.
After all, it’s no small task to plan a wedding, especially in a country whose language you don’t speak.
And then there’s the fact that we barely knew one another.
But Robbie and I shared a belief that we had been destined to meet and be together.
Fueled by that certainty, we found a seamstress to sew me a simple white halter dress and to tailor a dark olive suit for Robbie—I picked the color to match the green flecks in his eyes.
I bought him a necklace with a Buddha pendant.
He gave me a “Thai gold” ring that had sapphires arranged in the shape of a heart (it would eventually turn my finger green, but it was all we could afford).
And on October 16, 2002, just ten days after first laying eyes on one another, we hired a translator named Charlie and stepped aboard a tram that would take us to the top of a mountain.
Our destination: Wat Phra That Doi Suthep, the glorious temple where we’d be married.
Doi Suthep, as the temple is known, is a holy place marked by gilded pagodas, statues, and shrines.
According to legend, it exists because in the fourteenth century AD, a monk named Sumanathera had a dream that he was supposed to go to the city of Pang Cha to look for a relic.
He followed the premonition and found what many believe to be the Gautama Buddha’s shoulder bone.
When the reigning king of Thailand heard of the discovery, he had the monk bring it to him.
Half the bone, which had split in two, was placed on the back of a white elephant, which was then set free.
The elephant made its way up the steep, 3,400-foot Doi Suthep mountain, stopped at the summit, trumpeted three times, and dropped dead.
Seeing this as a good omen, the king ordered that a temple be built there in the year 1383.
My favorite part of the legend was that the Buddha’s shoulder bone was said to have magical powers.
Among them was that the bone was able to vanish.
On my wedding day, I was determined to do the same.
At least when it came to Epstein and Maxwell, I no longer wanted to be seen.
When he’d asked me to marry him, Robbie had given me the chance to achieve that goal.
We were two people from two different countries who’d met in yet a third country and fallen in love, almost overnight.
For days, we’d been swept away by one another, as if there were no one else on earth but us. Today we would become husband and wife.
As the tram ascended, I looked at my reflection in its glass windows.
My new dress fit perfectly; my hair was mostly up, with a few tendrils falling around my face; and I wore a crown of baby’s breath and small yellow and purple flowers.
The vision made me cry again, overcome by the idea that I might be in control of my own life at last. Confused, Robbie asked if I was having second thoughts.
Not at all, I reassured him. “But until you,” I said, “I thought weddings were for other people, not for me.” I felt like I was inhabiting a dream.
When we reached the mountain’s summit, we each tied seven strings around one another’s wrists, as Thai brides and grooms do.
Each string signified something we hoped for: long life, enduring love, friendship, fertility, prosperity, sustenance, freedom.
When we exchanged vows inside the temple, kneeling in front of a monk who wore flowing orange robes, they told us we were the first Westerners ever to do so.
Mat, our only witness, used one of my FunSavers to take our picture.
After the short ceremony, we descended into the city again.
We called our parents—Robbie’s in New South Wales, Australia, mine in Florida—and after they recovered from their astonishment, each one of them wished us well.
Robbie took me out for ice cream, then we headed back to the Royal Princess.
Opening the door to our room, I saw nothing but rose petals—on the threshold, strewn from the doorway to the bed, and arranged in a heart shape on the coverlet.
Robbie had asked the hotel to turn our room into a bridal suite, and, boy, had they pulled it off.
When we flung ourselves on the bed, sending the rose petals flying, I had never felt so tethered to another human being. I only hoped I could make Robbie happy.
Our wedding day was almost over when I realized I had one more call to make.
Robbie had made clear that he needed to hear me tell Epstein and Maxwell goodbye.
He wanted that for himself, he said, but also for me.
I had a right to assert myself, he said—to choose my own path.
Robbie believed it would be good for me, and for us, if I said so out loud.
I agreed with him in principle, but still I hesitated.
Even with eight thousand miles between us, I was afraid of them.
Finally, I dialed Epstein’s cell phone. I felt a churning in my gut as I waited for him to answer.
Would he yell? More likely, he’d threaten.
I knew he would stop paying my way at the Royal Princess—Robbie and I were prepared for that.
But could I truly sever my ties to the powerful people who’d ruled my life for more than two years? I still wasn’t sure.
A few tense moments passed before Epstein picked up. “Hello?” he said, and his voice—that smug Brooklyn growl—sounded impatient.
“I fell in love and got married, Jeffrey,” I blurted out. “I’m never coming back.”
There was the briefest pause. “Have a great life,” he said. Then a click—Epstein had hung up on me. We wouldn’t speak again for more than five years.