I wrote an earlier, unpublished, story that contains many of the occurrences described in this story. I thought a sweet story for Valentine's Day (but not the contest) might be a good idea and I stole the incidents for this short story. The original story may find its way to publication some day.
I've never had much luck with women, or men for that matter. Since elementary school, I hung around with a group of guys my age from my neighborhood. We played games with each other, choosing teams as necessary. I was always the last guy picked. I had difficulty understanding why at the time. I was a good at playing baseball as any of them and better than most. In general, I was a decent athlete, managing to make the starting team in organized sports such as high school football and golf. Just never with the kids on the block that I grew up with.
All of the kids in our gang had neat or funny nicknames, granted to them by the other guys. Names like Ace and Flipper because of their talent with cards or pinball. Not me. I was just Dwight. No matter what talent I had, my nickname remained Dwight. I guess they thought Dwight was funny enough.
I figured it out during my senior year in high school with the help of my calculus teacher, a woman with insights on everything.
It was my name. Somehow, I had missed that. My mother named me Dwight. My grandmother thought President Eisenhower was God's gift to the nation and the women in it. She planned to name her son Dwight in honor of the President but she had three daughters. The honor of naming their son Dwight was left to the daughters. The first one to have a son was destined to name him Dwight in honor of the President and to satisfy my grandmother. My mother drew the short straw. I was born just two weeks before the second boy in my generation birthed by one of the sisters. If my mother had just been two weeks later, my whole life might have been different.
To add insult to injury, my mother gave me a middle name, Jerome. To the kids I grew up with, Dwight Jerome was too funny for words. The only solace my names gave me was my mother's inability to say them together. When she was displeased with someone in the family, she resorted to full use of both their names. When she was angry at my dad, she would shout, "John Alan," to insure he knew he had made the short list of people she was at odds with. My brother became, "Andrew James."
However, my mother was unable to get, "Dwight Jerome," out without stumbling over the syllables and shouting something in gibberish that no one in the family recognized and no one responded to, especially me.
My calculus teacher's solution was so simple that I was amazed that it hadn't occurred to me. "Just use, 'DJ,'" she suggested. So, I entered university with the moniker "DJ." Few of the other students knew my actual name and I managed a decent student experience for the five years I was there.
However, while using "DJ" prevented further damage to my self esteem, it did little to repair the damage already done. During the twelve years of school before university, I always thought of myself as less than the other students. It caused me to be shy and reticent to engage with the other students, especially girls and then women. I found it difficult to engage in conversation with girls and the prettier they were the worse I got. It was no surprise that I graduated high school a virgin.
Using "DJ" in college kept the problem from getting worse, but I was still a basket case when I was one on one with a woman. The proliferation of Greek letter organizations on campus resolved the more physical problems that arose when I was with a woman. I never joined a fraternity, but I rarely missed one of their parties when I could attend.
I made a point to arrive late, after a significant portion of the drinking had occurred. By that time the coeds were already on their way to unadvised sexual activities and I didn't have to have a meaningful conversation with them to get to home plate. All I had to do was be available, show interest and manage to give them a handful of what I had to offer. The result was, I got laid about every other week when school was in session.
Move ahead a decade. I was thirty-three, single, living alone and working in information technology where loners and introspective individuals not only fit in but were in the majority. I had only been laid three times since graduation and each time, the woman was blind drunk.
Then I got the phone call. It was a Wednesday evening. Even though it was a local number, my phone informed me that it was probably a "Scam Call." I'd had three beers and was feeling pretty playful. I figured I'd just play with the caller in the safety of my own living room until he hung up in frustration. It was something I'd done in the past and it gave me a feeling of control missing in the rest of my life.
The woman was selling life insurance. She had a sweet voice and I couldn't pull her chain in good conscience. I listened to her spiel and responded with feigned interest just to continue to hear her voice. After a while, she began to make sense. I should have a life insurance policy not tied to my employment and, even though I had no descendents at the moment, it wasn't guaranteed to always be that way and to buy a policy now, when I was young, was a sound financial decision that would grow with time.
I agreed to let her come to my home Friday evening to lay out the program and present the paperwork for me to sign.
I spent the next two days in amazement of what I had done. I was going to meet, one on one, with a woman in a private setting where neither of us had been drinking. My instinct told me that it was an incredibly stupid idea that would only end badly. Worse, it was in my own home, where there was no place I could run away.
By the time Madison, that was the name she used on the phone, arrived, I was a basket case. When she rang the doorbell, I almost hid in the kitchen and pretended not to be home, hoping she would give up and leave.
The third time she rang the bell, I realized that she was determined and probably wouldn't leave or if she did, she be back later. Whatever it took to get me to sign the deal.
Hesitantly, I opened the door, hoping for someone over sixty, with a hooked nose and missing teeth. That would be bad enough but at least survivable without making a total fool of myself.
Madison was standing on the small porch. She took my breath away. She wasn't just pretty, she was gorgeous. My ultimate fear of a woman. I just stood in the doorway and looked at her. She was about five foot, six or seven inches tall with luxurious brown hair in an above the shoulder page boy style. Her facial features were out of Vogue or Elle, perfect eyebrows, slender nose and pillow like lips, not over large but inviting. But it was her eyes that held my attention. Green, almost hazel irises, open wide and large, black pupils that seemed to draw me inside. Her eyes were so incredible that I didn't absorb the rest of her body until later.
When I stood, speechless for several moments, she finally said, "Hi. You're Dwight?"
I nodded, unable to speak.
She looked puzzled. "May I come in?" she asked.
I nodded again and stood aside to allow her to enter. I was stiff with fear and still speechless.
She walked past me to the center of the living room. I closed the door and followed her, shuffling since walking wasn't a reality.
She put out her hand. "Hi again. I'm Madison. We spoke on the phone Wednesday."
I shook her hand without verbal acknowledgement of her statement. I'm sure she noticed the tremor I was unable to suppress.
"May I sit down?" she asked.
"Of course," I managed to say, my voice cracking with the strain. "Can I get you anything?"
"Water would be nice," she responded. "And get some for yourself," she added.
I returned with two glasses of water, handed one to her and sat on a chair across from the sofa she was sitting on. I began to notice the rest of her body. She was wearing a scoop necked white blouse of a satiny material that billowed over her ample breasts. Her straight above the knee skirt slid up her thigh as she sat, threatening to reveal more of the forbidden skin than I was prepared to handle.
I swallowed hard and gulped some of my water.
"Are you all right?" she asked. "Maybe I should come back at a later time?"
"No. No. I'm fine," I managed to say although my unsteady voice and tone revealed something entirely different.
"I don't understand," Madison said. "I thought you were expecting me?"
"I was," I admitted, my voice improving as I spoke.
"So, we're still okay to talk?" she asked.
Inexplicably, my courage and voice continued to improve. "We are," I said. "But maybe I should explain first."
