Page 57 of One Last Step

Oh yeah.So I hitchhiked to California.I will spare you the gory details, but I did so by leveraging my youth and my assets.My idea, not the poor saps I seduced.I substituted sex for power for a long time.I thought that since I could make men want me it made me strong or better than other people or something.I don’t know.Maybe I just needed the validation that there was something about me that mattered.

Anyway, I got to California and ended up in Monterey.I don’t know if you’re familiar.It’s a little rich people town south of San Francisco.It’sreallypretty.The coast is beautiful, the forests are like storybooks, and even the houses are pretty without being too in-your-face.I remember arriving and thinking that I could spend my life there.

I think even then, I had a feeling that my wandering would end one day.There’s something exciting about being a leaf on the wind, but it’s hard to realize that one has no roots and one’s only end is to eventually grow brittle and dry until one crumbles to dust.I know that such a fate awaits everyone, but it’s so much more difficult to face when one faces it alone.I’m so glad I have a family to face this end with.

But more on that later.I must tell you what happened to me in California.

I ended up living with an artist for a while.An older guy.Elias Blackwood.Isn’t that an awesome name?It sounds like a character from a romance novel.He was like a character from a romance novel too: older, handsome, passionate, brooding.I confess I fancied myself quite a woman for attracting his attention.

Anyway, that was fun for a while, but Elias was falling in love with me, and I wasn't falling in love with him.There was a younger man, too, Victor.He was Elias's apprentice.Hereallyloved me.I felt bad because he was a sensitive artist type, and I’m not really into that.I guess Elias was too, but he had this brooding darkness about him that made himsooohot.

But I had to leave.I couldn’t give him what he wanted, and the most I could give Victor was a chance to paint me naked.I would have given him more if he asked me then, but he didn’t.I think he knew that he was setting himself up for heartbreak.

Anyway, I wandered for a few months after that, and I actually took a break from sex during that time.I tried to be a good person, I really did.But I still hated myself.I still couldn’t feel good unless I had someone under my thumb.

That’s what it really came down to.When men wanted me, they were desperate for me.I could be a generous lover or a frosty ice queen or a tease or a slut or whatever I wanted.It wasn’t even about love.It was just…

I felt hollow.That’s what it was.I felt like I was just a fragile shell of a woman with nothing inside.For a little while, those dalliances of mine filled that hole, but then they didn’t, and that’s when I moved on.

So, I had my little soul-searching phase and didn't find my soul.I ended up in New Orleans because I figured it would be a different environment, and I always liked jazz.I met a piano player—Marcel Lacroix, another awesome name—and we started an affair.He was married at the time, but his wife was a real bitch.Sorry, I know that's a shitty thing to say since I was screwing him behind her back, but she was.Real snooty and arrogant and holier-than-thou on top of it.

That only lasted a few months, too, but this time it was Marcel who broke it off.Let me tell you,thatwas a big hit to my ego.She did the classic ploy of exposing him in front of friends and family and telling him to choose.I thought for sure he’d choose me, but he didn’t.He chose her.

So that sucked, but it only sucked because I was still selfish and needed the validation of being better than other people.I needed to feel like I was the sexiest prize a man could ever get, and when I wasn’t, it kind of hurt.

God, it feels so silly looking back.I thought I was so worldly and mature, but I was really just a dumb little girl who jumped out of the boat only to realize that she didn’t know how to swim.That was one thing you always knew better than me.You knew that you wouldn’t survive the rip current, so you focused on strengthening your boat.That makes me think that youarealive because you knew you had to create a fortress that could weather storms.You never minded being in a cage because you never saw it as a cage.To you, it was a shelter.

Anyway, I wandered for a while longer after that.Kinda fell into alcohol for a while, but not too deep thankfully.Did a few drugs, but nothing too crazy.It didn’t really do much for me, even in the short-term.

Then I decided to go back to Boston.You’re probably gasping in shock to read that, but it’s true.I wanted to go back and ask you for help.I had given up and was ready to surrender to mundanity.I made it as far as Falmouth and met another older man, a winemaker.Not as old as Elias, but still almost twenty years older than me.His name was Parker Bellamy—and yes, that’s another amazing name—and he had a home in Martha’s Vineyard.He was rich too, really rich.Marcel was kind of rich too, but Parker was old money rich.

He bought me a house in Martha’s Vineyard, and we would see each other at least once a week.He was married too, but his wife was having an affair with his business partner.He was using me as his revenge side piece at first, but it became something more.For both of us.

You can judge me if you want.I’m not pretending to be in the right about all of this, but I don’t regret what happened.I did love him.Not the way I loved Carl—I’ll get to him—but I loved Parker.He was the first man I really loved.

I think I just liked being taken care of.Looking back, I’m pretty sure that’s what it was.Before Parker, I was the temptress, the seductress.I liked that men wanted me.That’s what it was with Parker at first, but then he bought me the house, and then a car, and then he paid for my health insurance.Then one night, I was sick as a dog.I told him that he didn’t need to come over, but he did.He bundled me up, made me soup and tea, and sat with me watching comedies until I fell asleep.Then he carried me to bed.No one had ever done anything like that for me before.

So, I told him I loved him and asked him to leave his wife.Again, you can judge me if you want.I wasn’t a good person yet.It was selfish and wrong to ask him to leave his family, but I did it.I just wanted that feeling of being worth someone’s love for the rest of my life.

And he did.He left his wife.He bought us a house in Geneva, faked his own death, and set us up with new identities in Switzerland.He was Heinrich Schweizer, and I was his wife, Laura.

That lasted for exactly two weeks.I woke up one morning, and he was dead.He’d had a stroke during the night and passed away.

I remember very distinctly that I felt guilty more than I felt sad.I realized a lot of things all at once when I found him that way.I realized that I didn’t love him, I just loved the way he made me feel.I had stolen him from his family and made him come over here to take care of me because I was selfish.I was upset that he was dead because he wouldn’t be there to make me feel special anymore.That hurt the worst, because it meant that I had lied to myself and now I had to come face to face with the fact that I was shitty.Thathurt because it meant that even when I realized I was selfish, it was for selfish reasons.

So I decided that I was going to just… stop.I had a house, I had money that Parker had left me, and I was far away with a different name.As far as anyone knew, I was just a grieving young widow.I buried Parker and amused myself by exploring Geneva.No more men, no more wandering, no more stupidity.I just wanted to exist without being a part of anyone’s life.

Then I met Carl.

It’s difficult for me to describe what falling in love with him was like.It was weird.It was like the moment I saw him, I just knew.He was waiting for a cup of coffee, and I was standing in line to order.He looked up at me, and he blushed and got this goofy smile on his face, and I knew right then that I wanted to see that smile every day for the rest of my life.

So I introduced myself to him and asked him out.I learned that he worked at the marina cleaning boats.He made just about enough money to keep a roof over his head, but absolutely nothing more than that.Keep in mind that before now, all of my relationships had essentially been sugar daddies, so when I invited him to move in with me and started payinghisbills, it was a bit of a shock.

I just wanted him to be happy.He wanted to be in advertising.That was his dream.Writing ads and little jingles for ads.I loved that.It was so simple and honest and pure.He didn’t want to be great or glorious.He literally told me that his dream life was writing ad campaigns and going on walks.Maybe taking train rides places and going on walks there.Isn’t that adorable?He was so sweet and funny and cute and just… just perfect.

I’ve tried to think about why him.He wassounlike everyone I was attracted to before.I used to think that was part of it, but I don’t think so anymore.I don’t think there is a reason.Not a deep one, anyway.I just saw his smile and decided, Yep, I want that one.

And I loved making him happy.At first, yeah, I just gave him mind-blowing sex.It was what I knew how to do.The more I got to know him, though, I started doing more things.I would plan little trips for us make him cute dinners, or plan date nights with movies and snacks.He would get so happy.He would smile at me and tell me how much he loved me and how grateful he was for me, and it would feel good, but mostly it would feel good because he was happy.I had made him happy, and I loved making him happy.

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