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.
TED
I couldn't believe the things I found on the internet although I can't really say I was totally surprised or unprepared. We were warned about the dangers of pornography on the internet almost weekly in church, but somehow I thought the real danger was in dirty pictures and movies more than with the written word. Once I opened a link and was led down the first shocking path of endless pop-ups I was nibbling ant the bait on the barbed hook. I told myself that I had enough self control for protection, and pretended to disgusted like all my church going friends when I disconnected and went back to work on some a diversionary problem.
Later that evening I went back on line, and when I checked my e-mail, I noticed I had several junk mail items that had subject lines that were sexually oriented. These were in response to my brief encounter earlier and seemed to be guessing at what I might be interested in. It worried me that someone out there seemed to be watching what I was doing, and I quickly deleted all of the entries. The next day there were even more and when I decided to delete the one at a time by opening them up and looking at the initial page first. Most I deleted immediately after seeing the collage of images in the overall advertisement. On one or two I clicked on the link to "remove myself from their mailing list and went through the process that popped up.
I was curious when I found a reference to erotic stories on one site and opened the page to a list of samples. I wasn't impressed with some of the titles that suggested rape, incest, homosexuality or bondage, but I felt my heart race a little and noticed my cock stiffen when I came across a title that I could relate to. Exhibitionism and risk of discovery made me breathe faster, having sex in public or unusual places made me erect, but when seduction or reluctance was included as a strong element in the story; and when the characters were drawn into behavior they wouldn't normally consider unless they were being led by a building, grinding lust that blocked everything else in their lives out, the blood pounded in my temples and my cock felt like it was going to tear through my pants.
It wasn't that long ago that I would never have accessed the sites I started to visit or even looked at images or red stories that filled my computer and monitor, but the more I looked and read, the more obsessed I became. At first, curiosity drew me in, and then in time, tame show-off images gave way to digital photos of graphic sex showing every penetration imaginable, stories of erotic couplings were shoved out of the way to accommodate a growing need for bolder tales of dramatic seduction that led normally shy conservative women into bizarre risky sex with lovers or strangers.
The higher someone climbed the ladder of civilization or society convention, the further they could fall, and the further they fell, the more it emphasized the addictive power of sex, lust and passion. What I had missed most in my life, particularly at that point, was passion. Nothing else seemed to have the power to compete with or take the place of the passion I felt in this new world of sexual fantasy, and with having lost my first wife to this same world of sexual addiction I could only feel regret and envy. Regret that Sandy and I couldn't have discovered this passion and lust together; regret that I wasn't a part of the sexual expression she enjoyed after we parted, regret that Maria Elena and I had never learned to incorporate passion and lust like this into our own lives together before she was ripped away.
In this context of regret, I empathized with those stories that involved married people going through the extreme emotions of seduction, deception, betrayal, and jealousy the most. Like I said, the higher you climb, the further you fall. It seems like society has always admired women who can be strong and forgiving when husbands stray, and then fights to saver their marriage, but I had always wondered how a man could be a wimp when he was cuckolded by an adulterous wife and stay in the relationship. I wondered how a wife who professed her love to an innocent and noble husband could cuckold him and then go on and even do it again, and yet it was apparent that many, maybe even in my own community, were living these stories out in reality.
