This story may seem like a re-write of the last episode in Down and Up the Road, and in most ways it is. It goes on to answer some of the questions I left open at the end of the original story, and opens the door to other adventures that might lie ahead. Whether that door stays open or closes will depend on how this is received. I had hoped that writing these stories might open up some exchange, some correspondence, some touching with the world out there, but reality is a little cool, and a little empty. The effort is formidable and at times exhausting so I might just be burning out quickly. I hope you enjoy and will let me know if this should continue.
The Road Ahead
The straining rays of morning sunshine were powerless to dismiss the cloudy grey that dominated Ted Davis' outlook on life. It wasn't that he was hopelessly mired in depression or overcome with despair at loosing his sweet wife Maria Elena so unexpectedly. She had passed away quickly, in her sleep from complications in recovery from a routine surgical procedure. Her passing was haunted by the specter of medical malpractice, but rather than being consumed with anger and bitterness, Ted was simply struggling with his inability to find something exciting to live for anymore.
His life with Maria had been full of duties and commitments to family, church and work that they shouldered together without the slightest amount of regret or reservation. Love was a deep bond between them that was expressed more through the sharing of labor and friendship than in bedroom passion, but neither of them felt like anything of importance was missing in their intimacy.
Ted knew that passion could be a powerful force in any emotional facet life, and that whenever it was included it provided an energy that could become almost self perpetuating. The critical key was to discover the emotional facet that held the greatest natural interest and possessed the need for expansion and expression.
Sex had always been subordinated to all of the more important aspects to Ted's life alone, and then to Ted and Maria's life together, but he knew all too well how it alone could become so important and addictive if it was given rein, that it could crowd out everything else of importance. Ted's first wife Sandy had opened the green door and ventured into sex without him, and it had taken complete possession of her through the powers of her own imagination and the seductive influence of handsome contractor bad boy.
No other emotional facet of life seemed to have the power to compete with sex once a person set it loose; sex seemed to be the perfect fertile soil in which passion fuel could be produced and consumed simultaneously, almost like the mythical perpetual motion machine. That's why in Ted's life, sex and passion were never aloud to run freely together, even in a well fenced grassy pasture.
After the shock of Maria's death had worn off and when he was no longer being pushed by schedules, decisions and deadlines, Ted's life seemed to drift into a funk that was dominated by the absence of passion for anything at all. A financial settlement for Maria's death had been provided by the hospital's malpractice insurance that was enough to meet his needs for modest independence and he was satisfied. He just needed to find something to capture his interest in life again; if he could find interest in anything, then passion would at least have a chance to enter his life again.
He bought a new top-of-the-line computer because he never tired of the discovery process that seemed inseparably connected to ones use with them; he had come to enjoy using a computer in his work. His interest in their capabilities had always kept him up to date with advances in technology and that same interest had been a prime factor in moving his career successfully forward. With all of his kids gone from home and starting lives and families of their own, the house seemed especially empty. Ted started to pass the long, quiet hours and days away at his keyboard with his trusty mouse at his finger tips.
As he surfed the magic waves of the internet he was fascinated at the incredible banquet of possibilities that lie endlessly before him. At first he was reluctant to open links that didn't appear to have redeeming value, but curiosity and the endless time on his hands eventually got the better of him and he cautiously opened a door that would eventually take him down a long long road of discovery.
In spite of the way he had always worked to control his thoughts and protect himself and his family from pornography and sexual obsession, He wasn't cold or controlling, Ted had always lived with great love. Love for his wife, for his family, and love for his self. He had felt that love strongly with Sandy, and did all he could to express it in every meaningful way he could. Love was honest and deep and pure to Ted and he strongly felt that in order to be honest and true to himself, once he had acknowledged love for someone or something, he could never deny it, or that it had ever been.
Love would always be the basis of his relationships with all those around him, past present and future. Those commitments had applied to Sandy as well, even if she had turned her back on them; when she chose another direction based on sex and another life apart from him and their two children, he knew his memories of her would always be framed in love, and not in the human bitterness spawned from betrayal and denial that seemed so natural.
He had always felt close to Sandy, even after he divorced her, and throughout his marriage to his beloved Elena, in fact Elena her self had warmly welcomed Sandy into their home on many special occasions. Once Ted Davis acknowledged his love for someone in his own consciousness, it would always be a part of him, and he did his best to teach everyone around him to live by the same principal. It shouldn't be surprising that memories of Sandy's sexual awakenings and wild life she led after their divorce would mingle with the images he found on the web, and would have a profound effect on the way he chose to direct the course of his life and relationships after Maria Elena's death.