As the poet said, "Two roads diverged in a woods, and I took the one least-traveled by and that has made all the difference."
That road, a well-paved Federal highway outside Glenwood Springs, quickly became a Colorado State highway, then more of a Pitkin County road, rutted and pot-holed. That turned to well-packed gravel. Then to two ruts going off into the near-distance. Finally it morphed into a walking path, then a deer trail, finally a rabbit run, after which it ran up a tree and disappeared into a knothole.
"Two roads diverged in a woods, and I took the one least-traveled," and now where the Hell was I?
Apparently, I was right beside a little old, disused cemetery, ringed with a rusty old pipe fencing. There were about six old, weed-encrusted headstones and one lonely, tiny mausoleum. The names on the stones said 'Helbore'. The little mausoleum, though, just bore the name of 'Jenny'.
It was sunset and it was clear I wasn't going to get out of where I was until morning. I had about half-an-hour before full sunset, on what was to be a moonless night, and thus blacker than the inside of cow's stomach at midnight.
So—at age 30, here in 1992—my 'campsite' was a silnylon tarp over the triked maxi-scooter, then extended back and pegged down to a grass surface. I was snugged right up against the little tomb, my head almost touching, with a ground-cloth under me, and a can of vaguely-warm beans, crackers plus water for my dinner, drawn from my emergency supplies. Tying and staking everything down took a few minutes and by the last of the evening light, I was in my sleeping bag and settled in for the night.
It was too dark even to think about the composition of my next nightly pun. In the fading light, supplemented by flashlight, I re-read my ex-fiancee's last letter one more time.
Shaking my head at how I managed to 'dodge-a-bullet' by getting away from this enraged, inconsistent, entitled, cheating blonde airhead, I re-read:
"To my creep, pervert, sex-obsessed ex-boyfriend, who should be castrated for his own good. The engagement and marriage plans are OFF.
You didn't do what I told you to do. I was gonna wear the pants in this marriage, that's what I decided, just the way I told you to behave, when you gave me your ring. I'm keeping the ring.
You don't own me. I'm not your slave. I can go out and have sex with whomever I want, whenever I want. After all, I learned in my Women's Study classes, it's my body—my choice—and I can decide to use my body anyway I please.
You just have to pay for my vacations, my dating, my other men and always be there when I get back, chaste and waiting.
The courses I took on Woman's Studies at college taught me that monogamy is a relatively modern concept. It became clear that I needed to 'find myself' and get re-connected with my Inner Sexual Female Goddess.
I learned that a woman's body is designed to please several men, not just one. No one man can totally satisfy me, now that I know I'm truly liberated from obsolete conventional social mores.
So, OK, I had my 'fling.' If you don't like the way I am, you can just fuck off.
After all, this 'fling' was just once, to get it out of my system. It was just recreational sex. Come on, a little fuck with another half-dozen black guys over a couple weeks vacation that you paid for is no big thing.
But you didn't wait for me to come back. You weren't chaste, the way I demanded you to be. You dated another woman while I was gone to the Islands.
You weren't true to me. You betrayed me.
Now I've got to punish you.
The best thing is that I don't have to listen to any more of your stupid, dumb puns, jokes and limericks any more.
So I'm getting rid of you before we get married. You're a sick, perverted sex fiend. All you want to do is fuck and have sex, twice a week at least. You're pathetic. My grandmother and mother warned me about men like you.
My former boyfriend was so much more moral, so upstanding. He didn't want to do sex morning and evening, especially since he had that really good-looking hunk of a close friend to spend time with, not bothering me for any dirty, nasty stuff, until the two of them suddenly left.
That meant I had to make-do with you.
Except for my 'fling,' sex outside a committed relationship isn't right. It says so in the Bible, and in social hygiene films.
I don't talk about sex. I don't think about it. I don't miss it.
Remember, sex is only for married people, for diamond-ring owners, for nice girls. Sex takes place behind closed doors, with the lights out, bed-clothes on and then only for 3 minutes.
Sex isn't fun. Sex isn't casual. Sex is a deadly serious, disgusting, dirty, humiliating, sticky-gooey, slimy, degrading business. Sex is nasty. Sex is what women have to endure. Sex is shameful.
I have to save my sexing because pleasure from sex is a commodity that can be provided or withheld, bought or sold, even in marriage. That means there's only just so much of it, so I've got to be frugal with it.
Sex has VALUE = MONEY = WEALTH and I've got to save every little bit of it. Now that you're gone, I can tell you that I'll give up the least amount of sex I can, while getting the most money and valuable stuff I can from my Island men.
Now that I'm free of you and your pervert's fantasies, I can tell you the truth. Liking sex is what you fake until the ink is dry on the marriage license. Just lie there. Don't move around. Don't use your fingernails or moan or anything; that's slutty.
That's what Mom, Grand-mom and the profs at school taught me. I am not a slut. Being a slut is not frugal.