Prologue
There is not much time left. I am an old woman now, but I shall endeavor to impress upon you the importance of a life well lived. To spend your last breaths broken-hearted, alone, regretting so many opportunities lost to work, or prejudice, or narrow-minded thinking; that is no life! So many have abjured me; hated me for my courage, yet quietly envied me that same bravery; to take what I want and be damned the consequences – no, that is not how I lived, although most would disagree. I lived my life to the fullest possibilities. I took the risks that others would not; for I had seen the beauty of their dreams fade from their eyes under the mundane tasks that society placed upon us. I watched helplessly as souls withered and died beneath the pressures of daily life. I witnessed the end of a life never truly lived, and wept tears of sorrow of what could have been.
For I was one of them – the model of the cream of society. I wore the right clothes, modest of course; I never ate nor drank to excess; I kept a neat and tidy home. My work was professional and exemplary. I was a wonderful hostess, a pillar of the community. A sister and mother that was the very epitome of perfection; and, of course, the prim and proper vanilla wife.
And then in one second of wretched, horrible fate… it was gone.
My practically perfect husband was killed in a single car accident. He ran off the road and hit a tree, killed instantly. Of course, the fact that he died with his pants around his ankles and the lips of a dead drag queen stuck to his cock soon became the news of the day in our small town. The ongoing speculation centered around the time of death and the fact that the drag queen had a mouthful of my husband’s semen. So, did he run into a tree at the time of orgasm or directly after? Yes, that’s the kind of question, among others, that the good God-fearing Christians of my community wanted to know. Along with various propositions from the males and some females of this pious rural village to help me “ease my ache.”
It was two years after my husband’s demise, when the new pastor of our local nondenominational church came by to introduce himself by shoving me on the sofa and sticking his stubby fingers up my skirt, past my panties, and into my pussy, that I had had enough of these pious pissants and their sneaky perversions. I wanted to experience life, and especially sex, on my terms. So, I grabbed a large Yankee candle off the end table, clocked the over-amorous clergyman in the head, grabbed my purse and keys off the counter and took my leave of small-town America.
I headed for the city to get lost among the many and the only thing I regretted leaving behind was that Yankee candle.
And so, I began the next chapter of my life… in letters and experiences.