Chapter 19

Now I come to the last chapter of my narrative. After the war I continued on, not as much affected since I had the long view and fully expected a long life ahead of me. I was still physically a man of my thirties, hale and hearty, attractive to the women, whom I continued to love, though the 1950's were a time of sexual retrenchment in America. Then, sometime in the 1970's, an entertaining decade as the sexual revolution was in full swing, I noticed a change. I began to age at a normal rate. I was panicked at first, but over time, reconciled myself to the inevitable. I had lived much longer than most men and could be thankful for that. It was then that something pressing came to me, I needed an heir.

That was why I married and produced a son. You are that son. I have told no one else any of this, and they would not believe it anyway. I grow old now, the ring has given me my term on Earth, and I grow tired and ready to pass on its power. Perhaps you have noticed how happy your mother is in our marriage. Yes, I have used the ring. She does not nag and she is content even with my foibles. It is a small price to pay for happiness, to tell her simply to be happy.

I have pondered long on my term of time. If he told the truth, I have been shorted 200 years by the reckoning of my ancestor who gifted me. I have, I believe, solved that riddle. Because of my upbringing I did not use the ring for long periods of my life, thinking that I was somehow taking advantage of women, when really all I was doing was releasing their real desires from the insane rules of our society which has so corrupted our view of the simple sex act. Therefore, the power of it did not flow into me and keep me vital. The ring must be used to pass the power into you. Remember the words of the man who passed it to me, "It gives longevity in the use of its function." I wish I had understood those words three hundred years ago. Listen, use it wisely and discreetly, but use it!

I must tell you something else about the ring. From the manuscript you will have gathered that it does not affect your seed. You must therefore take such precautions as seem fit. In this modern age when people can die from sex, one thing I can tell you. I have frequented in my time women from the streets of Paris, Whitechapel, New York, Boston, and the list would get too long if I continued. I have never been cursed with any disease from these women. Therefore, I must conclude either I possess a natural immunity to all such disease, unlikely, or that the ring does grant such immunity in the power it passes. You must decide what precautions you will take, but that has been my experience.

The power of the ring has natural limits. As you may remember from my narrative, it has no power over the male mind. I have tried many times to change a man's mind using the ring and each time the ring has remained inert on my finger. Do not get yourself in some situation depending on its power when men might be present. I have also found that it is an accurate measure of a woman's maturity. I have tried its power on girls only to find it remained inert. It isn't until a girl becomes a woman that it will affect her. And last, you can always tell a real woman. I have had occasion to use the ring in an environment where men tried to behave as women, dressing, talking, even believing there were men by mistake. The ring can tell, they are men, and its worth is nil.

Most importantly, I hope to save you from many of the doubts that tormented me for much of the time I held this unique power. Those doubts I think cost me dearly. I did not always use the power I possessed because of these doubts. I grew to manhood in an era when man had cast his view of woman in a mold of his own design and it had little to do with a real woman. Woman was put on a pedestal, and cast down as a temptress, all in the same breath. This paradox took me long to resolve.

I found out that woman does not belong on a pedestal any more than a man does. Nor does she deserve castigation as the root of all man's evils, the primal Eve of man's fall. In point of fact, woman is very much like man, with good and bad all muddled up. I spent many years knowing that taking a woman sexually was abusing her. Woman was of a sort higher than her sex.

What rubbish. Do not deny the pleasure to yourself or to her because of such ideas. Listen, why is it that a married woman should never accept an offer of drinks alone with a man? We know how pure women are and how unlikely they are to cheat, correct? What then is the danger... because it isn't proper? Nothing is proper in itself. It becomes such through experience. So why would society admonish married women to not be alone with a man not her husband?

This ban, so strong in our society, only makes sense if the likelihood of its breach is equally strong! This is what I have come to know over the years. Women are just as prone to surrendering to their desires as men, if they have the chance. Husbands have learned this, and society, which really is the collective learnings of many over time, has made rules to keep women from men so that they cannot act on their desires, desires as fervent as any man's. All those years I spent in not using the power to protect their innocence, I was in ignorance of their true passions. Woman is equally desirous; the ring simply rips aside the social veneer and allows her real desires to emerge.

One thing that has come to astonish me, and in truth I must say that I once felt a similar feeling, but I can only claim it was my Christian upbringing interfering with God's natural plan, is when I hear a man say he has tired of the chase, of the variety of women and wants only one. How can that be? Would I want to eat Hamburger Helper every meal? And quality isn't the thing either. I would tire of the same First Class Bordeaux if that was all I was allowed to sip. It is like saying you don't want to hear one new symphony by Mozart, you don't want to play one new nocturne by Chopin, you don't want to see one new sculpture by Michelangelo. Each woman is like a piece of rare art, and experiencing her is experiencing the rareness of her art.