This is a letter to my creativity coach Sara
Before our call I always give her a headsup.
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Dear Sara,

The picture of the painting is one from before your time. When I made business cards for my alterego LS Harteveld I used this painting.
At the time I remember thinking it was okay, that it was public domain because it was so old.
But I could have been wrong.
Just like Little Red Riding Hood’s risk assessment of the forest was not entirely accurate either.

It must have been in the year of our Lord 2018 I think, when I selected the Little Red Riding Hood painting for my business card.
But as fairy tales go, her story, and my identification with her, had been much older.
Bringing it into print, was just a confirmation of her significance, not the birth of her existence.

And although over the past few weeks I have talked often about the current status of my lover and me
–
Which is our permanent status, which is there is no status! Just varying degrees of uncertainty and feeling new women enter his life.
Feeling varying degrees of interest and energetic commitment, rise and fall like the waves.
And I found myself talking about how I can see it is a dryer season for me, yet the flow going somewhere else has been almost tangible.
So arousing, so exciting, that it is almost as if I, and not this new woman, is having an affair with him.

And I told this story often, and it started taking its shape. And although the first time I told it, I still thought it was the story of me being sidelined and on a slippery slope of being broken up with;
The more often I told the story I realized that I loved telling it. That it gave me pleasure, even if I technically no longer was the main character.
Or at least not the one getting the juicy bits!

So I was starting to have fun telling the different aspects of it, or to share new developments where I always excused myself for not going into detail about the specifics because I found that for the sake of privacy those things were  best left unsaid. Instead I described the meaning they had.
“He really made an effort to keep me there.”
“He sent me something sweet.”
“He gave me something that symbolized both new hope, as well as a goodbye present.”
–
And although the story had been unfolding for a couple of weeks, it wasn’t until last night that a friend reminded me of how deliberate and cautious I had been from day one, in dealing with him.
That I had had a deep understanding this was the type of man that can take you down. And the danger, I was in.

It had been a moment of awakening!
A call, like you find in the Hero’s Journey.
The moment you know this was what you were waiting for. THIS is your quest: To be challenged by the most difficult of men.
To learn, how to stand your ground.

Right there and then, had been when the parallel of me being Little Red Riding Hood and him being the wolf, had clicked.

Yet it wasn’t until last night, when a friend reminded me how aware I had been I was playing with fire, that I remembered the wolf/ Red Riding Hood analogy from back in the heyday.

And how fitting a new analogy had been!
An analogy I used telling the story as it is today. An analogy of the sexual treats basket or the basket of desire.

Without remembering our Little Red Riding Hood/ Wolf history, the symbolism of how we started, I had picked a new symbol that could flawlessly be edited into our story.

The story of the baskets of desire.

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Once upon a time, not so long ago, there was a little girl named Red Riding Hood.
Red Riding Hood loved adventures and on one of her many off-the-path strolls through the forest, she had met the Wolf.
The Wolf had asked her what was in her basket, and Red Riding Hood had answered that it was cake for grandma, and that he could not have any.
She insisted every piece would go to grandma, for whom her mother had intended it to be.

The Wolf fully understood that this was not her basket to share, but he asked if she would like to go for coffee with him, at the Inn down the road.
“And they have this fresh strawberry cake there. You should really try it.”
So they went to the cafe, and the strawberry cake was the most delicious thing Red Riding Hood had ever had.
“It’s a great place for drinks too,” the Wolf said.
“Would you like to join me some time?”
They exchanged phone numbers and before little Red Riding Hood was at her grandma’s house, she had received a gif from him without any text.
But it was the sweetest thing, and she liked looking at it over and over and thought deeply about its meaning and why it was the perfect mix between something cute, and something brazen and bold.

She felt like a whole different Riding Hood after having seen the Wolf.
Like she was her own person now, and on the verge of her biggest adventure yet.

Very soon, Little Red Riding Hood became the mistress of the Wolf. And just like the first time they had seen each other, he would always know the best places to go, and the most delicious things to eat.
He would bring her to the spots in the forest where the wild berries grew, and where honey could be found.
And he would prepare meat for her, over the fire.
And although in the real world Little Red Riding Hood was a vegetarian, she never told the Wolf. It all fell under the spell of what they had together.
And she sank her little white teeth in the roast, without thinking where it came from.

He always brought her back to the edge of the forest, before midnight.
And Little Red Riding Hood never slept over.
She knew very little about him, and there were times when she hardly saw him.
Where he texted just the right amount of times for her not to grow too suspicious, but when she checked her calendar she realized it had been months since she had seen him in person.
And even longer since they had had sex.
That he had been quietly moving out of her life, and that she had failed to notice.

Once, the Wolf had broken up with her but it had changed nothing in how they related to each other.
Still together, yet never together.
But Little Red Riding Hood had not liked him breaking up with her at all. And every time he grew distant, she held her breath if he would play that card again….
The card that would end their game, at least in theory.
Until the flesh, the feelings, the attachment to being in the dance, had wiggled their way out of the social construct the Wolf had imposed upon them.

And the game would begin again.

Over eight years had passed since Little Red Riding Hood had ran into the Wolf. Or was it more accurate to say he had ran into her?
Had it all been premeditated?
And how many Little Red Riding Hoods were there?
After eight years, why was she still on the margins of his life?

But also: why did she still feel so alive, when thinking about him?
Why would she choose being sidelined, broken up with and ghosted, any day over having him at her feet asking for her hand?
The thought of the Wolf turning into a reliable dog repelled her.

And it was in that moment, that she realized it was because of his basket of desire, that the Wolf carried with him. A basket filled to the brim, and overflowing with all the adventures he had had. When being with him, he had shared that with her.
Just like he had given her the best strawberry cake, on that very first day they met.

The Wolf had a basket, with different treats, collected on different occasions throughout the forest and beyond.
And it was a mighty asset, of which few could understand the power it held.
The basket held hearty treats, some were sweet, some required acquired taste, others were completely harmless except for your enamel!
Some were perishable, which the Wolf made sure were either stored in the freezer, or consumed within hours.
The Wolf liked telling you about what was in the basket, and visibly enjoyed it when you made your pick.

The Wolf had a steady supply; Not of money, but of sensual pleasures.
And he would share them with Little Red Riding Hood and other fairy tale figures too she presumed. But the price was you never asked questions how his basket came so full.
Just like Little Red Riding Hood had never asked where the roast had come from.

And Little Red Riding Hood’s basket?
Well, that no longer contained the cake of her family. She had her own basket, and it was filled with fire balls.
Not overflowing, but until about half an inch under the top.
The hard outer shell tasted of cinnamon, and you could crack it with your teeth, after you had sucked on it for quite a while.
If you tried too soon, the ball was still hard as rock, and unforgiving.
The core was juicy and sweet, and would turn into a gum once you had chewed the juice and the remains of the hard layer out of it.

Other men had often fancied her basket, but Little Red Riding Hood never felt like sharing, except for with the Wolf.
But she did recognize it would be better if she too had other adventures and would get around the forest a bit more.
She was no longer as outgoing as she had been when the Wolf met her, and sometimes she felt she had failed living up to his expectations.

She would be better off with a second Wolf in her life or another figure who sported a full and varied basket.  
But the two characters that had been candidates, had never made a serious pass at her basket.
After the initial shock of the fire works of meeting Little Red Riding Hood had passed, they firmly rejected her by saying they were involved with other women. 
Which was very effective because Little Red Riding Hood did not care for men without sexual agency.
And she lost all appetite to share her fire balls with them.

So even though for her it had only been the Wolf, and he had proven to be inconsistent in dating her, she had been happy overall.
And because her fire balls did not require any maintenance, she did not have to worry in the months she did not see the Wolf.
What she had in her basket was unchangeable. 

And one day, when the Wolf would return – and she knew he would! -she would not be angry nor disappointed. The thought would not even cross her mind.
She would be curious to what new delicacies he would offer her and the smile on his face when she tried them.

She would never ask where they came from;
And the Wolf would never tell.

And in their own kingdom, a place even beyond the realm known to Grimm and Andersen;
The Wolf and Little Red Riding Hood, lived happily ever after.

~Lauren
An unexamined life is not worth living