It Was Always Love
This is a slightly modified version of a postI wrote as I processed Prince’s sudden death in 2016. There is still a hole in my heart. I miss sharing the planet with him. Reposting is a part of how I honor him today.
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I'm a writer. There has always been something cathartic in telling a story. So in the midst of incredible sadness I am sharing my story with you.
My partner says that she went to the movies with a friend one day to see whatever show happened to be playing and ended up seeing Purple Rain, a movie that changed her forever. From that moment on she was obsessed--still is--and thanks Prince for much of the joy she's had in her life.
My path was not as direct. He had to touch my life three times before I paid attention.
1979
Thank you for a funky time, call me up...
On my way to high school driving the first of two cars given to me by my father, the song I Wanna Be Your Lover came on. The music was okay, but the lyrics made my head spin. Chock full of double entendres (I wanna be the only one to make you come...running), I couldn't get it out of my head for days. But trying to balance my perfectionist compulsion with wanting to fit in with my peers had turned high school into a three year long hurricane for me. I had a hard enough time holding on to my shit--I couldn't add one more thing to my burden.
1984
Somebody please tell me what the hell is wrong
The second time I became aware of Prince was when Purple Rain came out. I was newly married and in an unfamiliar place with no friends. I don't have memory of going to or being in the theater (my memory often fails me when it comes to very emotional moments), but I remember buying a beta max copy of the movie as soon as it came out. I coveted that short, fat rectangular box (I still have it), but for reasons I can't explain, I never watched it. Not once.
The third time, as they say, was the charm.
1987
In my darkest hour, you can be my bliss
Given an opportunity I couldn’t refuse, I took a job two hours away from my home and my husband. My mom’s home was closer, and she graciously let me stay with her. I had a great time. I loved my job, had some cool adventures with my mom (like driving 45 minutes to buy a pizza that boasted cheese UNDER the sauce, not over it), and spent time with my sister and brother and their families. Moreover, every other weekend I honeymooned with my husband. Life moved along pretty smoothly.
Except at night. I started having nightmares. At first they came infrequently, and I barely remembered them. As time went on they grew more frequent and more horrifying. Eventually I had bad dreams every night. There seemed to be two themes--black roses and elevators. Black rose dreams woke me up crying. Elevator dreams were worse.
I know now that I was reliving sexual abuse I'd experienced as a child. I was in the same room, largely unchanged--the purple walls I'd begged for, music and my academic awards (evidence of my hypervigilent perfection), and the bed. The bed.
Any time I was alone with my thoughts they drifted to dying. What death would feel like. All the years of my nephews and nieces lives that I'd miss. Pieces of my nightmares started to come to me during the day. I searched continually for distractions, trying to save myself. One day I saw an ad in the newspaper about an upcoming Prince concert. Suddenly, I remembered his movie and that song, and how they made me feel. I needed to feel that again, to go to his show, but I was afraid to go alone. My sister told me her husband was a big fan (her, not so much) and that he'd probably go with me if I had my heart set. I did. He did.
October 1988
Do you want him, or do you want me?
We had tickets in the Nosebleed Section because we'd gotten them so late, but it didn't matter. The entire arena was filled by the presence of the little, ethereally beautiful man on the stage. I was captivated--couldn't take my eyes off him. But the music transformed me. He sang of love and sensuality and peace and God and sex. His voice resonated, reverberated throughout my body. I sometimes make a joke, saying if he'd asked me that night for all of my worldly possessions I would have given them to him.
Except it was the truth.
The next day I went to every record store I could find and bought every tape Prince had ever released. I drove around for hours listening to his music. He didn't become "the soundtrack of my life". He became my reason to keep living.
1991
I want to jump for joy and thank him I'm not alone
I'd gotten a bigger and better job and moved back upstate with my husband. While stalking a record store (my new hobby), I came across Prince's official fan magazine, Controversy. Not only was it heaven on the page with big, color, never before seen pictures of him, but it had a pen pal section. Suddenly, I wasn't alone. I'd found my tribe--men and women who experienced Prince the way I did. Many of them are still my good friends. People who understand me and love me anyway. Miraculously, I also connected with the person who would become my partner. I like to say Prince gave her to me.
Present day
Can't begin to understand how I feel about you, everything I want to do I can't do without you
I've seen Prince in concert over one hundred times. I have every song he's released, and sometimes multiple versions thereof. My partner and I celebrate his milestones--birthday, album releases, awards, performances. Our annual Super Bowl parties celebrate his 2007 award-winning appearance. Many of these dates are commemorated with concerts that hold special meaning. There is not one room in our home in which he's not evident, either in fact or by influence.
My life is filled with good friends who I connect with over songs and youtube clips, through marriages and divorce, through children and grandchildren, over the mountains that life put in front of our best efforts and under the bridges that we fell from. When we're happy, we listen to his music and watch his movies. When we're sad, we do the same. Since his passing, we cling to each other and assure ourselves we'll get through this, and that we'll find joy again. To a point, we all have.
My friends and I asked questions of ourselves and each other. Where would we go from here? Who would we be, if not Prince Fans? How would it feel to not look forward to his next album, the next concert, the next TV appearance?
Over the past long years, some of those questions have been answered. We’re still fans, and still mourning our loss of a man who remains so important to us. His estate has begun to release his music, some that we already have and some new to even us. We’re also seeing previously unseen concert performances. Bittersweet gifts. But nothing compares to having him here.
His music is an indelible part of me. It's in my very core, infused in my cells. His songs remain in the background of everything. My experiences with him and because of him live on.
Getting his autograph in NYC and almost fainting because I thought he'd levitated, a tiny angel dressed in white.
Nearly being "rear-ended" by him in MPLS because he was driving too fast and we were going too slow.
Hearing gunshot and fearing for our lives as we left Glam Slam, his former nightclub.
Flying to England for concerts and spending a sleepless night at the only after show I ever attended.
Going to his store in MPLS so many times the manager told his staff "Play whatever videos they want to see".
Grieving with him, from a distance, when he lost his child.
Meeting pen pals. (I LOVE AND AM GRATEFUL FOR EACH OF YOU.)
Standing outside at 2am in line for a show, with some of the craziest and friendliest people I've ever met.
Feeling time stand still when he died, and then watching the world turn purple.
Even as I think about it now, my eyes well with tears. City monuments, bridges, buildings were illuminated in purple lights. The Weather Channel App showed an illustrated picture of the sky with purple raindrops. All in tribute to him. I’d never seen anything like it before or since.
Never say the words "They're gone"
The world is off of its axis. I miss him every day. My heart aches, and in quiet moments it's hard to breathe. I still can’t watch the tributes. I can't even listen to more than a couple of his songs or watch a whole video at one time without sinking into overwhelming sadness.
I wish I could tell him a few things:
Dearest Prince,
I am ever grateful for the beautiful ways you've touched my life and the many ways you saved me. Thank you for the people that are in my Purple Tribe because of you, supporting each other to get through this thing called life.
I hope you find, in this part of your journey, the peace that eluded you in your time on earth. I am ever blessed to have shared the planet with you.
I know to some this is insanity, but it is my Truth:
It was always love.
Bloom if You Want to.
Today, for no particular reason other than it wanted to, my Christmas cactus is blooming.
Just a month or two ago, we thought we’d lost it. It didn’t bloom at all last year. We thought we killed it when we repotted it last summer. I was heartbroken. It was a present from my sister years ago. She died in 2018, but her heart is here in the flowers she’s given us.
So, it blooms again. Actually it’s thriving. We’ve always said we had an empowerment garden— Our flowers grow if they want to.
National Pet Day
Left to right: Fergus, Molly, Toby, and Chloe. My babies.
These are the puppies I've had the honor of loving. From left to right are Fergus (the smartest puppy, ever), Molly (as you can see, the silliest puppy), Toby (aka Little Man, the most highly strung puppy), and Chloe (Queen of the house, bossiest puppy). Toby is still with me. The other three are playing together across the Rainbow Bridge.
Today is National Pet Day. What would life be without our pets? A little lonelier? A bit dull? Less fun?
All of the above. Our pets help us relax and take us away from the everyday grind. They make us smile and laugh and yes, sometimes cry because we love them so much.
Come to think of it, so do books. Lots below to check out.
Please give your pet a little extra TLC today.
Concerts in the Age of Covid
The last concert I attended pre-Covid was Richard Marx. It was great fun. Not only is he a talented singer/songwriter but he is funny and engaging.
I had no idea that would be my last, in-person show.
During Covid, musicians suffered. Touring is a major income stream for both bands and soloists. Responses to not being able to tour varied. Innovative performers found ways to perform. Online concerts were big deals. Some were free to keep fans engaged. Individuals frequently used social media to play for their fans in a more intimate way.
A few adventurous bands performed while they and their audiences were in bubbles, actual physical barriers against the virus. Don’t believe me? Check this out:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/flaming-lips-concert-perform-inflatable-bubbles-oklahoma/
In the aftermath, many things are changing. People are back to work. Restaurants are busy again. Movie theaters have opened. Concerts are back, too. Big and small, indoor and outdoor venues fill to capacity (sometimes at extreme costs).
But as much as I love in-person concerts, they go on without me. I have not forgotten the devastation of Covid. The millions of people it killed—some of whom were my friends. I can’t forget how it’s spread—through the air primarily. To be at a venue surrounded by a crowd of unmasked people cheering and singing is a risk I’m not willing to take.
I just can’t forget. How can anyone?
Guest Author: Shiela Stewart, Paranormal Suspense Author
Hi all! Please join me in welcoming Shiela Stewart!
Sometimes I think I was born to scare and be scared. Might be because the first horror movie I ever saw I was I think 5. It involved a woman wielding an axe and killing people. I snuck downstairs to see what my parents were watching. I was caught and put to bed. Or it could be my brothers who like to scare me with glow-in-the-dark skulls in my closet or lying in wait under my bed and grabbing my feet, scaring the crap out of me. I rarely had nightmares. What it did was encourage me to write scary stuff. Vampires, demons, witches, shifters and ghosts. Spirits are my favorite, having lived in a haunted house. The first story I wrote was called Too young Too Evil, about a teenage girl conjuring up a spirit to help her stop bullies and her brother who always made fun of her. I was 15.
But back to ghosts. I’ve always been fascinated with life after death. Do we just become a void, not existing at all, or can our spirit, part of our soul, still linger, not able to cross over? No one can be certain. But it is fun to write about. Secrets of the Dead, book 1 in the Lost Souls series is about two ghosts, one good and one evil and two people locked in with them.
I love writing about haunted houses. As I said above, I lived in a haunted house as a child. The spirit of an elderly woman who died in the house still walked around like she was still alive. The house I live in now has a mischievous elderly gentleman who likes to play tricks. Occasionally a ball will roll across the room. He whispered my husband's name when he was the only one in the house. He also has a habit of leaving the toilet seat up, when I’ve home alone. I know, weird right! We also see him walk down the hallway and once, my daughter and I caught a glimpse of him sitting on the sofa. So now you can see why I am fascinated with ghosts.
I would love to hear from the readers, so leave a comment to win a copy of Secrets of the Dead. One lucky commenter will win.
Here’s a glimpse of Book 1 in the Lost Souls series.
Secrets of the Dead.
Blurb: Jessica Coltrane is a die-hard sceptic who believes that ghosts and paranormal activity are nothing more than a figment of an overactive imagination. That is until she finds herself locked inside a haunted house with the enigmatic paranormal investigator C.J. Dowling.
Born with the ability to see and speak to the dead, C.J. Dowling thought investigating a haunted house would be a job like many others. He’s prepared for anything—except smart and sexy Jessica.
Working together in close quarters, C.J. and Jessica discover it isn’t only negative tension between the two, but sexual as well. Giving into their desires seemed like a good idea at the time until they wake and find the spirits thought otherwise. Trapped with the ghost of a child long forgotten, an amorous entity that is threatening Jessica, and a powder keg of a spine-tingling mystery that might just be better left buried.
Bio
Shiela Stewart is a paranormal suspense author with a writing history that stems back to her youth. Always a dreamer, wondering if her stories would ever reach an audience, she was finally published in 2006 and hasn’t stopped since. It is rare to find a stand-alone book as she prefers series stories. Her longest running series to date is her Darkness series, which is a vampire romance.
Her joy for scary suspense is evident in each of her books. She has had several accomplishments, including fighting for the top spot in the rankings with author Stephanie Myers, receiving glowing reviews as well as interviews on local television and reviews and interviews in The Romantic Times Magazine.
When not writing, Shiela spends her time with the love of her life, William, and their children and grandchildren. Her strong affection for animals is evident in the many cats she cares for.
Her favorite time of the day is at sunset.
You can find me at.
Website: www.shielastewart.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/shiela.stewart
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ShielaSue
Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@shielastewart
Apple Books. : https://books.apple.com/us/book/seducing-the-darkness/id1050480128
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Shiela-Stewart/e/B002BLN95E%3Fref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share
Barnes and Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/seducing-the-darkness-shiela-stewart/1014485332?ean=2940152679007
Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/ca/en/ebook/secrets-of-the-dead-17
Decadent Publishing: http://decadentpublishing.com/secrets-of-the-dead/
Suffering from the Winter Doldrums?
Battle the winter blues at N. N. Light’s Book Heaven Shake Off Winter Doldrums Book Festival. 27 books, 23 authors, a huge giveaway plus sure-fire ways to combat your winter melancholy! https://www.nnlightsbookheaven.com/shake-off-winter-doldrums
Something Great is Coming
I’m in the final editing stage for Waiting for the Son. It’s very exciting. I’m currently debating the whole “preorder” process. The last time I tried it, all of the preorders were lost and not recovered due to a glitch with the retailer.
Anyway, while I’m finalizing the book, I have returned to my playlist—songs that remind me of my hero or his story. Pull up a chair and your beverage of choice, and take a listen.
Love in Abundance
February is the month of love, isn't it?
When I write, I consider all types of love. Not just romantic love, like the hot, passionate love between Chey and Zander in House of the Rising Son. But also the love Chey has for his children, the "I'd give my life for you" love that parents have.
Then there is the love between friends. I say I love you to my friends regularly. I don't want them to doubt how much they mean to me. Although he has yet to say it, you know by his actions that Chey loves Consuela, drag queen and the nanny of his children, with his whole heart.
We love our families--and that holds different kinds of love. I love my mother deeply. I admire and am grateful for her strength. I wouldn't be the same person without her love. But I love my sister quite differently. She was my role model, my "true believer", and my first friend. Life without her is...not the same.
Chey hates his half-brother Richard, the torturer. Seriously. I don't use the "h" word lightly. But the love he had for his mother and the powerful love he received from her enabled him to move beyond the hate. He may never admit it, but he loves his sometimes controlling father, too. He's realizing his dad loves him the best way he can.
Our pets are often on the receiving end of our love, aren't they? They fill all the empty spaces in our lives and in our hearts. We feel their unconditional love . Toby likes to sleep on me, upside down. He hears my voice on the phone when I call my partner from the car, and stands in the window as I drive into the driveway. If that isn't love...
I also love potato chips, Prince, BTS, and the beach--an altogether different kind of love.
Love comes in many forms. We are fortunate in that way. May your February (and the rest of your life) be filled with an abundance.
Thanks for being here.
National Library Lover's Month
Although I don’t regularly frequent libraries anymore, they were a big part of my life. The library was one of the biggest and newest buildings in my hometime. I remember how it felt to walk thought the doors…and how it smelled. Like books!
My mom would take my siblings and I there when we were very young. I was hooked on old books like Miss Piggle-Wiggle books, Pippi Longstocking, and Nancy Drew. As I got older, I could get to the library by myself, and I read tons of books I probably shouldn’t have read. Rubyfruit Jungle, Helter Skelter, s a biography of Alice Cooper , and ALL of Gordon Merrick’s books come to mind. Of course, the book that had the greatest impact on me at that time was Interview with a Vampire. I still think of it as one of the most erotic books I’d ever read.
In college, the library was humongous. Tables with bankers lamps were everywhere. There was a section that had dim lighting and vending machines. Between school work and reading for the sheer joy of it, I practically lived there.
Reading was my escape. Libraries were my sanctuary. Happy National Library Lover’s Month
It's Not A Small Life
Today, I heard someone say that they know they lead a small life.
It was, in fact, the second time I’ve heard it. A character on a drama series also said it. The comment, so soft on the surface, hit me pretty hard both times. What might it mean, to live a small life?
I’m not going to say more about the real person who said it. That’s not fair. But it’s worth talking about the fictional person. Based on the rest of the story, the character seemed to mean that his life is unexceptional. Ordinary. He had a job as a salesman; he made a living, but he wasn’t close to being rich. He lived in a small apartment, had a couple of friends. He was, by all accounts, a good son, a great big brother, and a loving boyfriend. He meant he was neither a hero or a villain. He wasn’t part of the elite, nor was he a criminal (despite being surrounded by them).
But…
He was really good at his job. His boss valued his work and supported him during a difficult time. He loved and had a close relationship with his mother and his sister. His friends cared enough to defend him when the going got rough. His girlfriend loved him as completely and as deeply as he loved her. He fiercely protected his family, sometimes to his detriment.
He touched the lives of many people. He loved and was loved. Sounds like a colossal life to me.
Release Blitz: Swingers Light Up Vegas, by Adriana Kraft
Join me in welcoming Adriana Kraft!
At 90? Really?
In case you missed it, Movie Star Rita Moreno, 91, recently owned up on TV to becoming aroused while filming her latestmovie. The scene? A men’s football locker room featuring, you guessed it, virile hunks changing clothes.
Meanwhile, I was recently chatting with a librarian friend about the erotic romance my husband and I co-author under our pen name, Adriana Kraft—at our age. My friend laughed and told me about an elderly woman who came to her library each week to request specific books. When she warned the woman how explicit one of the books was, the woman drew herself up and proclaimed, “I’m not dead yet!”
Both these women – Rita Moreno and our librarian’s patron – are three to four decades older than the happily married pair who star in our brand-new release, Swingers Light Up Vegas. Dan and Ginger have been swingers since their children grew up and left home a few years back, and they’re in Las Vegas to celebrate Ginger’s fiftieth birthday.
Swinging at 50? Feeling sexy (and desirable) at 50? Hardly a stretch of the imagination. There are lots of swingers age 50 and older. In some larger cities, there are clubs specifically by and for the older swing set, who’ve often aged out of more general lifestyle gatherings.
I think our fictional couple could easily have found such a club on their Las Vegas trip – in fact, they were referred to it by somewhat older friends back home in the Midwest.
We’ve created this short story to feed reader fantasies with a taste of the swing lifestyle. If you like this teaser, we hope you’ll come back for more!
What happens in Vegas…
Swingers Dan and Ginger head to Las Vegas to celebrate Ginger’s fiftieth birthday. Through their friends back home, they’ve scored a free week at a posh Vegas resort condominium. They fill their days with every iconic Las Vegas experience they can dream up. But by night? They’re determined not to leave Vegas without sampling what it has to offer in the erotically charged swing lifestyle. A Vegas swing club beckons – will it live up to their fantasies?
Excerpt
Déjà vu, all over again.
Ginger wasn’t sure if the thought was part of her dream or part of her waking up, but it made her smile. Her full-body stretch confirmed she had some aching muscles—not really sore, but a soft ache that brought back steamy memories. What a night!
She finally opened her eyes to the sight of Dan holding out a hot mug of coffee. If the scent had awakened her, she had no memory trace.
Dan settled in next to her on the bed, a broad smile on his face that she knew mirrored her own. “What a treat,” she said, “to watch you with Lai last night. She sure is a cracker jack. High energy—wonder if she’s insatiable.”
“Pretty close, I’d say. I’m so glad they want another round before we leave. If we do decide to buy a condo here, it looks like the swinging scene is pretty promising. And you’ve gotta know how much I loved watching you and Lai together. You two were so in sync.”
“I do know.” Ginger snuggled a bit closer and clasped Dan’s free hand with her own. “When we started this adventure, it was mostly so I could act on the bi identity I’d finally become aware of. I had no clue how much watching me with another woman would be a turn-on for you, too.”
Book Information:
Swingers Light Up Vegas
By Adriana Kraft
Release Date: January 30, 2023
Length: 5,500 words
Tags: Short Story, Erotic Romance, Swing Lifestyle, Later in Life, LGBTQ
Buy Links:
FREE with subscription to Adriana Kraft’s Newsletter:
https://storyoriginapp.com/giveaways/d1c82f5e-9b43-11ed-8c5e-b712215e57d9
PURCHASE FOR 99 CENTS
Universal Book Link: https://books2read.com/u/bQN2lZ
Available at Amazon, Apple, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, ScribD, Smashwords
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Adriana Kraft is the pen name for a married pair of retired professors writing erotic romance and erotic romantic suspensetogether. We like to think we’ve broken the mold for staid, fusty academics, and we hope lots of former profs are enjoying life as much as we are. We believe that love is love is love, and weoften feature bisexual women and ménage in our erotic romance stories. Together we have published more than fifty erotic romance novels and novellas to outstanding reviews.
During our academic careers, we lived in many states across the Midwest. We love to travel, so when we retired, we sold our house and took off in our motor home across the country. We now make our home in southern Arizona, where we enjoy hiking, golf, and travel, especially to the many Arizona Native American historical sites.
We’ve featured the swing lifestyle in a number of our erotic romance stories. We penned this short story to give readers a quick taste of swinging – erotically charged, always, and a safe place for bisexual women to express the full range of their sexuality. We’ve written an entire series of novellas set in the lifestyle, entitled Swinging Games. We hope you’ll check them out! And as always, reviews are the lifeblood of romance authors, so we hope you’ll leave one for us.
Website: https://adrianakraft.com
Blog: https://www.adrianakraft.com/blog
Newsletter: free download of our erotic romance novella Cherry Tune-Up for signing up.
Twitter https://twitter.com/AdrianaKraft
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BookBub https://www.bookbub.com/authors/adriana-kraft
Extasy Books Page https://www.extasybooks.com/adriana-kraft
Universal Letter Writing Week: January 8-14
Communicating is an interesting endeavor. There are a number of different media you can use: written, personally addressed; written to a general audience; face-to-face in person; video technology; audio technology; email; texts/instant message. I often teach about communication, explaining that each one of these mediums has benefits and challenges. Face to face communication is objectively the richest. Think of all the information that is conveyed through not only words, but tone of voice, cadence, inflection, facial expression, gestures, etc. Text is the worse, and maybe I’ll talk about that sometime. But for now, I want to talk about what I consider to be the next best medium—the handwritten letter.
I love writing letters. As an adult, I had a whole host of penpals around the world that I met through a fanclub. We wrote for many years. Some of them grew to be very close friends that I'm still in touch with. I have even met a handful. That was a cool experience, hanging with someone you haven’t met before, but knowing them intimately. One of them became my partner.
I hardly get letters anymore. I miss it. Every letter feels like a gift. Think about it. Someone took the time to pick the right stationery or cards, the right pen. and then give you a little piece of themselves through their handwriting. Here’s a fun fact about me: If I never buy another piece of stationery and notecards, I am sure I have enough to last the rest of my lift—and share some, too. I think the end of letter writing caught me by surprise.
You might not want to acknowledge this, but email killed the handwritten letter--or at least critically injured it. Even my long-term penpals have opted for the immediate gratification of texts, the convenience of email, or worse-->social media. Consequently, letter writing is a lost art. And now they aren't teaching cursive? I could type a whole email about that.
I hope we can one day return to the age of the letter. I think people will get tired of emails and texts. They don’t replace the personal connection that you’d get with a handwritten note. Here’s a challenge: If it’s been a while for you—or if you’ve never done it, write someone a letter. It can be brief or long, funny or serious. It doesn’t matter. Whoever you gift a letter to will appreciate it tremendously, and it will make them feel treasured.
You might be thinking that my vision of a return to letter writing is just a pipedream. Ah, well. At least we haven't stopped writing stories.
Take the challenge and let me know what happens!