Have you ever wondered what happiness actually is? Pleasure? Hope? Love? Varying combinations of all these things?
If someone gave you absolute power - do you think you could find absolute happiness? Maybe you think you could. Unlimited money? Any woman or man you desire at the drop of a hat willing to do anything you ask?
As I sit here right now, surrounded by the most beautiful women you could imagine, all of them willing to do anything I ask, more money in my bank account than I could spend in a thousand lifetimes, anything I want to eat or drink just a command away, I feel pretty sure that none of these things have much to do with happiness.
There is only one true happiness and it is chemical. I reach across the bed and grab the tube of gel on the table next to me. All eyes in the room are suddenly focused intensely on me. I unscrew the cap, squeeze the tube onto my chest and tell two of the women nearest me to massage it into every part of my naked body. As they start to massage the gel into my skin I close my eyes and lie back on the bed. There is only one true happiness and it is chemical.
***
I wasn't always this way, it is important that people realise that. When I'm dead and gone, I hope people don't judge me by the terror and chaos that I leave behind. Read this story and understand how things came to be. We are all just playing the parts that we have been cast for in life, villain or hero, it doesn't matter - you just play the part you were given.
I was born into a happy and wealthy family in an affluent suburb of Charleston, South Carolina. My mom doted on me, and my dad worked hard and grew very wealthy.
I was never clear about the source of my father's wealth. There were rumours but my father would always laugh them off if I dared to ask him about them. He travelled all over the world for business, and seemed to own a lot of companies offshore but that is all I really knew.
It hadn't always been that way. When my parents first met they were flat broke and lived together in a tiny apartment in a shitty neighbourhood. My dad start out grafting on building sites as a labourer. He didn't earn much but he worked every waking hour for years until he had enough money to start his own small construction company.
I won't bore you with the details (like he has bored me with the details a thousand times over the years) but his company grew rapidly to become one of South Carolina's leading construction companies.
He was very proud of his success, his story as a self made man - living, breathing proof of the American dream.
But it was his dream, not my mothers. She watched him drive the company forward with a hidden sadness. She talked fondly to me of the days when they struggled to make ends meet and had to cuddle up on the sofa to keep warm at night, always keen to reminisce about the early days of their marriage.
My mother was an introvert. Not shy, just reserved in her own calm way, but always seeking peace and solitude rather than noise and other people. She was very beautiful in a traditional kind of way, tall with high cheekbones and pale skin, all framed by gorgeous curls of long, auburn hair. Her long, thin body moved with such elegance and grace that it sometimes appeared as if she floated like a ghost.
We had a good relationship, my mother and I. During my early teenage years, we would spend most weekends reading together by the pool during the day and then watching a film together on the sofa in the evening. We existed together mostly in a comfortable, loving silence, occasionally punctuated by some small sign of love and affection from her.
My mother always took such care of her appearance. She was permanently on some kind of diet and aiming to achieve some weight goal or other. At weekends, she would retire to her room in the late afternoon for a few hours and then come down the stairs looking like a dazzling queen. She took such care to make sure her make up, jewellery, outfit were perfect and then she presented herself like a visiting monarch.
I never really gave it much thought until I was older and I realised that she was desperately hoping my father would return home and see her looking so glamorous. But he never did, he was out all day every day and most evenings. Sometimes he would stagger though the door in the early hours of the morning, but most nights he wouldn't come home at all. We never discussed it and it must have been a constant source of distress for my mother.
But everything has its time, and there isn't much time in a hormone driven teenager's life for weekends alone with his mother. She tried to hold on to me, to persuade me - even guilt me - into spending time with her, but my mind was elsewhere.
My mother was many things but she was certainly not an authority figure, I don't know if I ever heard her raise her voice my whole life. So with my father out all the time enjoying life, and my mother hidden away, I had a freedom that most kids could only dream of.
I took full advantage and my life became a whirlwind of parties, drugs and fun. Like a caged animal which gets released, I felt a hedonistic hunger to experience the world and all its pleasures to the max.
My father, who seemed to exist in a world of endless parties, fundraising events and 'business entertainment', relished and encouraged my new found party boy lifestyle. He got my friends and I on the guest list for all the most exclusive parties, secured entry into the VIP areas of the most popular clubs downtown, and his name alone could get us into anywhere we wanted to get.
My friends were endlessly envious of my father but I just felt embarrassed by the never ending midlife crisis that he seemed to be living through. Having the knowledge my mother was probably waiting at home for him all dressed up, while he wasn't giving her a second thought broke my heart on a weekly basis.
It was at one of my father's parties that I met the love of my life, the enduring obsession that has haunted my every fantasy and occupied my mind from the day I first set eyes on her.
I had seen Fran at a few parties previously, and it wasn't possible to see Fran without remembering her. She was like a miniature goddess, a model of perfection compacted into a tiny, five foot tall body.
Everyone seemed to know Fran, and everyone who knew her loved her. You could always tell if she was at the same club or party because she naturally drew all eyes to her. I can't really describe it, she was never a show off and didn't ever seem to crave the attention, but when she was in a room she just became the centre of gravity.
Anyway, the first time I met Fran was during the greatest summer of my life. I was enjoying a life without any responsibility or worries that most kids can only dream off. My father was hosting a party on his new yacht/party boat just off Sullivan's Island Beach. It was technically my 19th birthday party but that was just the excuse he used. In reality it was just another one of his famous parties which attracted the great and good from the area.
