Epilogue
Flashback to 1981, The Story Unfolds
It is July 2012. I am at home sitting in my quaint office-library and surrounded by books. I take a deep breath. My pulse starts racing, and I wonder where did all the time go? What happened to the last thirty plus years of my life? Why did it speed by so quickly? Is this where I’m supposed to be in my life now, or should I be engaged in something else before it’s too late?
I glance to the left side of my desk and notice the famous Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy staring at me, stabbing at my gut. I feel a nauseating rush and all at once I am irritated and envious. Those were my books to write. After all, I have lived that life.
My office hugs me in a sphere of tall, fully stuffed bookcases of non-fiction literature containing some of the most intense and extreme educational texts. How- to sex manuals, books on psychology, abnormal psychology, human sexuality, sexology, personality disorders, perversions, fetishes, other paraphilias, relationship self-help manuals, books on alternative lifestyles, gender-bending, criminal behavior, and even a few tomes about serial killers and the mafia. To the side of these books is a glass showcase of wooden paddles, sex toys, penis and pussy replicas, and a variety of other sexually graphic novelties.
The last thirty-three years seem like a dream, surreal at times, a half forgotten nightmare mixed with sexual encounters, challenges, numerous failed relationships, and a lifestyle that most people would think too bizarre, too taboo, and too embarrassing to share. There are both sharp and faded memories, some so traumatic I am sure they have been permanently erased from my conscious. My emotions fluctuate off and on like a blinding, blinking light. >From the present to the past, the past to present, unpredictably wielding and ringing the dizzy woe of what was happening to me then, of the choices I had made, of the things I was forced to do.
I am not just upset because I did not write Fifty Shades of Grey. No, it is much more than that. Regrets, yes. Failures, certainly, Losses, most definitely, But then I remind myself, there were successes too. A lot of them.
I lean back in my desk chair and close my eyes. When I open them, it is early August 1981.
(to be continued – also see AUTHOR page)