My life has changed in the past three years. It has been turned upside down and inside out in the most unbelieveable, unimagineable and dramatic fashion. I could never have envisioned such a change could ever occur, not to someone like me. But, it was changed. And, it was changed by an extremely beautiful, dominant, young black lesbian woman named Alexis.
To the outside world, I was a woman who seemingly had it all. I was blessed with above average looks, a financially secure husband, a nice home in the suburbs and an apparent career as the President of my very own company.
At this particular time in my life I don't think anyone in the world could have had a different perception of me. Yet, this image that I presented was not who I was inside. It was also a far cry from what I have become since the day that I met Alexis Barron.
I was born and raised in a small town just outside Oslo, Norway. The country of Norway is a relatively quiet and peaceful country that is almost hidden away from the rest of the world.
My father worked as an engineer for a large automobile manufacturer, and my mother as a hotel manager.
My two sisters and I were raised in an upper to middle-class environment, and we were sent to some of the best schools in the country. I was the youngest of the three and began learning the english language at an early age.
I was a diligent and moderately successful student. My grades were on the higher end of an unchallenging curriculum.
By the time I had reached my 14th birthday, my family decided to move to America, and we eventually settled into a comfortable life in the pacific northwest.
My two older sisters were 18 and 20 then, and they began attending college in the midwest almost immediately. I was placed into a very private and exclusive prep school for young women.
With the exception of one asian girl for only one of those years, this all-female prep school was exclusively white. There were never any black, asian or hispanic girls in the entire school of about 400 students.
The coursework at Saint Gertrude's was relatively easy. It resembled one of those finishing schools of the early 20th century that one might see in an old black and white movie. The daily curriculum was geared towards teaching us young women the proper manners and appropriate social etiquette of the upper class world. Most of the young women attending this school would eventually end up as the wife of a wealthy husband, and not much more than that.
Academically, I did quite well. I excelled in all my studies and felt comfortable in this quiet and unassuming environment. With the exception of my above average height, I never did stand out from most of the other girls.
At the start of high school, I had already reached my present height of 6'1" tall. My figure was a trim, yet voluptuous 36-26-37, and I already possessed a full "D" cup. Perhaps, I was about ten pounds lighter than the trim 141 pounds which I carry now.
My personality was always a huge contradiction to my physical appearance. Many would have viewed me as this stautuesque, young blonde woman with a pretty face and a mature figure, and one who might have had an outside chance of becoming a runway model someday.
I wasn't that person.
I was actually quite shy, timid and introverted. Most of the time I just hid behind these conservative dark-rimmed glasses, a result of a strict upbringing by a father who kept us protected from the all the terrors of the outside world. Despite my appearance, I felt clumsier and socially inadequate.
I wasn't nearly as confident or dominant as someone with my size, shape and looks usually is. Simply put, I wasn't this imperial Norwegian goddess many thought I should have been.
There were very few girls at Saint Gertrude's that were different. They were a little more assertive and popular than the rest of us, and they intimidated me.
From a distance, I secretly admired how these types of women could be so self-assured and in control of themselves. I marveled at the way their beauty and their natural social skills seemed to give them the ability to make so many friends. It was like they had some sort of secret power over the others. And, I was fascinated by them.
It didn't seem like a sexual attraction. Not during this period of time. The qualities they possessed were simply the qualities that I admired and felt humbled by.
Like most young women back then, I still had my dreams and fantasies of meeting an attractive and successful man, then becoming his wife. It was the stability and security I sought, and needed. But, at the time I was vaguely aware of it.
After graduating from this private high school, I went on to finish my bachelor's degree and swiftly moved through graduate school. I completed my Master's degree in less than two years.
During my academic career, I continued to have very little interaction with the other students. Mostly, I kept to myself and did not socialize with any of the groups or "clicks" of the schools I attended. There were a few dates that I was coaxed into taking, and this would be the only social life that I can claim. None of them would amount to anything. Mainly, I just focused on my studies and my family life.
My parents were certainly quite proud of me when I finally graduated.
But, I was really more confused than anything else. I was about to turn 25, and I was quite uncertain about what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.
After taking several months off, I took a job as an office administrator. My very first job was with an firm my father referred me to. Basically, he set me up with a nice job because he knew someone at a norwegian-owned company. I would spend the next five years of my life slowly and methodically crawling up the corporate ladder of the business world.
This was a rather shallow existence for me, to say the least.
My career in the world of international advertising was not all peaches and cream. My roles were less than exciting, as they were always in more secluded "behind the scenes" roles. My professional duties were simplistic, despite the impressive titles that I was given. And, it soom became obvious that my good looks and heritage were playing a much greater role to my advancement than my actual skills were.
I was not very aggressive or authoritative during my short-lived business career, although I became proficient from the administrative side. But, it would be nothing more than that. Never could one say that I was able to make any of the tougher decisions in business, or that I had the ability to make a business operate in a profitable way.
It was about this time when my feelings of ineptitude began. I was about to become 30 years old and I was beginning to have second thoughts about a business career. My thoughts of moving back to Oslo grew stronger since my family had just made that same decision a few weeks earlier. They were already set to move back to Norway when they invited me to a nice dinner one evening.
That is the night I met Jeff.
Jeff was an older gentleman of 50. We met at a small restaurant just outside Tacoma. I was there with my parents to have dinner when he suddenly approached me as I made my way to the ladies room. When my parents witnessed this brief verbal exchange from our table across the room, they began to drill me about him.
Moments later, they were asking him to join us and I wasn't excited about this at all.
My parents never made any secret about the fact they have always wanted me to find a nice man. To them, I was already too old to be a single woman in America and they seemed desperate to find me a husband to settle down with before they moved back to Norway. It was embarrassing for me.
Much to my surprise, Jeff turned out to be a really nice man. He was a tall man that owned a small, but very sucessful buiness in the perfume industry. He was an educated man who had a lot going for him at the time.
Jeff had a beautiful home in the suburbs, which was a short drive from the most elite part of the city from where he ran his business. He liked automobiles and I suppose that he felt some sort of connection to my father and his career in the automobile industry. They talked about automobiles from the first hour, and into the night.
Jeff had a modest collection of 6 older cars that he described as "vintage." Back then, I thought that just meant having a bunch of old, rusted out cars. He said they were worth a lot of money, but it really wasn't something that I found interesting, or cared too much about.
Nevertheless, we began dating right away and within just a few months he proposed. I was about to turn 31.
Obviously, my parents were ecstatic about this new venture. They even made a special trip in from Oslo for a celebration dinner with Jeff's family. They tossed my glasses into a chest of drawers and purchased a pair of contact lenses for me. It was just one of their less than subtle ways to prepare me for my future husband and marriage. In their minds, they weren't going to let this one get away.
We married only a few short months later in that same year.
My new husband was a gentle man. He was a bit shy and never overbearing, yet somehow he had such great ability in the business world. He really knew how to make things work within his own business.
His office was fairly small with a staff of only 8 administrative and clerical women. His company made a very good amount of money.
Money was never the reason that I liked Jeff. It was a very nice thing to have. We were financially well off but not in any extreme or vulgar sort of way. We were moderately rich but not wealthy.
Jeff's modest 5-bedroom home was valued at a little more than 700,000 dollars back in the year 2000, which was about a year after we married. His business brought us a moderate 200,000 dollar annual profit after his personal 250,000 dollar salary as the President of his company. Most of that, he would put back into his business.
To me, it was still a lot of money. It was more money than I had ever known before. The security it provided was nice and we had a comfortable life. Despite my uneasy feelings, I knew that I didn't have to worry about money.
When Jeff made me the vice-president of his small company, I was taken by surprise. I never expected to be in this type of role in my previous years in business. It happened shortly after we married.
My husband gave me a 125,000 dollar salary and a fancy title. But, he made no secret about the fact that he didn't want me doing the nine to five grind everyday. Rather, he preferred that I be the primary homemaker and come into the office "to help out with things" only when they needed me.
This was no more than once or twice a week, at the very most.
It was easy to see that this decision didn't sit well with the other 8 women working for my husband at the time. They were not in leadership roles. They were in administrative positions. To them, I was merely a "trophy" wife who was benefitting from my marriage to a successful man.
The other women were all older than I was. They were in their mid to late 40's, and they had been with Jeff for many years. It was my husband who really ran the business and made all the decisions. My occasional appearance in the office seemed to be more for "show" than anything else. All that I was asked to do was a little filing and accounting, and occasionally answering phone calls to set up appointments. These brief appearances were merely a way to justify my less than deserving high salary.
