12/29/2024
What a Ride!
This is number ninety-three in the blog series, “My Life in Erotica.” I encourage you to join my Patreon community to support my writing.
I ALWAYS FIGURED I’d grow old. I just didn’t expect it to happen so soon! I’m often mistaken for an adult because of my age.
2024 was the year I lived to celebrate my dodranscentennial, or platinum jubilee! That’s right. This young man is now seventy-five years old. But there was a time I didn’t think I’d make it to the party. Now, my heart is beating strong and I’m looking forward to the next 25 years again.
I guess that means I should start back in December 2023 when I had a routine annual check with my cardiologist while I was on a two-week holiday break in Seattle. The news was that I was back in A-Fib and after two cardioversions and two ablations in the past four years, the next step was a pacemaker. My two-week break extended to four and a half months!
January 4, I was in the hospital to have a Micra pacemaker installed in the right ventricle. On the 26th, I was back in for the ablation that would start the pacemaker actually working. A month later, I was back to have a Watchman (Left Atrial Appendage Closure) installed, but they found a clot and couldn’t proceed. After three weeks of extra strong blood-thinners, I was back in for the Watchman installation and a check to see that all the equipment had been installed correctly and was functioning. And finally, on March 20th, my cardiologist pronounced me good to go and my four month, two-week vacation came to an end.
I would be seriously remiss if I did not mention that my ex-wife and my step-husband hosted and cared for me the entire four months! When you hear me refer to her as Treasure in my travel books (Wonders of my World), I mean exactly that.
Well, I finally returned to Las Vegas and had a nice visit from a younger woman I’d known for a few years. We decided to see if we could tolerate each other long enough to possibly go on a cruise together. Sadly, the answer was negative. I have come to understand that when a woman says she “likes older men,” she doesn’t mean that old. And there was just too much drama for my old heart to take. Nice woman, but ten days was all we needed.
I’d been having a good time walking around without panting and wheezing for a change, so I decided to drive back up to Seattle for a month and just enjoy the trip. I stopped for a few days of theatre at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, a few days to visit my friend Angus in Portland (along with his various stripper friends), and then on up to Seattle. I finally decided I was never going to pull my trailer up the long road to Alaska, so I booked an 8-day cruise the last week of July.
It was great! If you’ve considered going on a cruise but didn’t want to travel alone, don’t let that stop you! I found a deal on a solo traveler room and discovered the ship organized dinners and events for solo travelers. I met some great people and we’re even planning a reunion in March. I always had a lovely companion when I wanted one, with no other expectations or drama. Great fun!
Then I had a long and leisurely trip south along the Pacific Coast until it was time to cut east to get to Las Vegas.
I had not been idle during this time, though I took the month of July off. But I’d been active through the whole first part of the year with writing, editing, and publishing. I got my Valentine’s Day contest entry, “Carousel,” finished and entered at SOL. It didn’t do well, but it’s an interesting concept I might continue later. It was published in my volume of short novellas, Bedtime Stories for Grownups.
At the same time, I finished the writing, editing, and design of the last book in Devon Layne’s Photo Finish sexology, Follow Focus, and released it on February 15. The entire six-volume Photo Finish set is available as both a collection and individual eBooks at Bookapy.
I was hard at work on the revision and editing of Nathan Everett’s The Staircase of Dragon Jerico, my 2023 November Novel. I released it on May 5. But even while I was editing and rewriting, I’d begun work on my Devon Layne book, The Strongman. I released that on August 25, after my return to writing and editing.
The month break was good for my creative juices. I started work on Devon Layne’s “Head Talkers” which is now in pre-release as it is being edited and has been renamed Soulmates. That will be released in January 2025. The July break also had me backlogged in terms of ideas. I wrote an entry for the SOL Halloween contest titled The Key to Eve. It won third place and as a term of the contest is limited to publication for premium members on SOL until summer 2025.
I completed the first draft of “Head Talkers” late in October and sent it to my story editor as I launched my 2024 November Novel, in progress under the title of Sisyphus: A modern myth. While I had 105,000 words by the end of November, the novel was far from finished, so I continued writing through December, finishing the draft on December 21, even as I launched the rewrite and pre-release of Soulmates.
All told, 2024 has seen a total of 700,000 new words written and three books released. Nearly all have been available to the various tiers of my Patreon subscribers. Whew!
I would be remiss not to mention in my year in review the appearance of a delightful young woman named Ashley. I met her in the spring when I returned to Las Vegas and visited my favorite gentlemen’s club. It wasn’t our first encounter. She was enthusiastic about my writing and wanted me to write a story that included her. In order to accomplish that, I needed to know a lot about her—both mentally and physically. While I was gone for the summer, we corresponded a bit.
When I returned in September, she was no longer working at the club, but wanted to continue our relationship independently. Nice! You might recall that in the Wonders of My World series, I talked about a stripper named Alice who became my muse as I traveled around the country and around the world. We parted ways a long time ago. It turned out Ashley has become my new muse.
She needed to move her six cats to her new apartment and my truck was big enough to fit all six cat carriers, the feed and water dispensers, and me in. So, I took them all to the new apartment. Ashley doesn’t have a car, so when I’m headed someplace interesting, like the grocery store, I text and ask if she’d like to go along. Usually, the response is yes. There is an occasional morning conversation that ends with us going out for breakfast as I listen to the sometimes unbelievable life of a young woman ‘in the industry.’ We’ll go to the AVN Expo in Las Vegas the third weekend of January.
And she continues to be available as my model, which I’ve created into a couple of characters in my new “Sisyphus” novel. It takes more than one character to fit Ashley into because like many people in the industry (myself included) she has multiple professional identities. I have to make sure who I’m talking to when we meet. I even have her listed under two different names and numbers in my contacts!
But one thing is certain: No matter what kind of mood either of us is in when we get together, we both end up in a better mood by the time we part. I guess at 75, it’s not a bad thing to feel younger for a time.
Next Sunday is the first Sunday of 2025. It’s the dawning of a new age and a new era. Who knows what it will bring? May you all have the holiday everyone deserves, and the New Year you voted for!
Please feel free to send comments to the author at devon@devonlayne.com.
