I was back to my normal activities, swimming, hot-tubing, even puttering around with plantings in the yard. It was a wonderful feeling after having had my wrist in that dang cast for six weeks. I had figured on about a week of stiffness or even pains during the rehabilitation of my broken arm from my fall in the bathroom. My daughter, Lexie, had said to take it easy on my wrist for two weeks after she had her nurse trainee remove the cast in the classroom training program, but it had really only taken about three days, even though I had overused it that very same day during my interactions with Gail, the trainee nurse. It might have had something to do with the follow up visit I had with Gail that next weekend, where she got the second half of the massage I promised her and got to pick my brain for how men think and how they should treat her, while I got a further dose of T.L.C. for my wrist.
I had kind of let it slip to Gail that I knew what my girls were up to and since I hadn't asked her not to tell, she probably told Lexie about it. So Sophie may come up with just a flat out blind date, or she may have some really unique idea to try to slip it by me. Or possibly, I had scared my girls completely out of being involved in my sex life. I'd just have to wait and see, but it had been five weeks now...
I had been sort of looking forward to finding out just what my daughter Sophie, my youngest who is 24 and a doctoral candidate in Psychology at the university, was going to come up with for her turn at helping this old man get back into circulation. I mean, yes, I had just been going through the motions for the last two years since my Caroline had passed, but when they had seen my package when I fell in the bathroom, and I heard them talking about how it was such a waste... This business of asking me to help out their friends and/or co-workers would have fooled many people and I guess it would have fooled me too if I hadn't heard their conversation. But Caroline had used me many times to help out women that she had become friends with in just that same way, a safe and knowledgeable partner with no expectations of a continued relationship after a boost to their self-esteem and/or sexual knowledge.
But you know; I am not dependent on my daughters fixing me up. Now that I had been awakened to that part of my life that had been shut down, I was perfectly capable of keeping myself involved if I wanted. I mean, I even had spoken with Mrs. Bea Good-Hand, my next door neighbor one day when I was planting a new tree down at the end of my driveway. She is a widow since about thirteen months ago when her husband, Tom Hand, had passed from a heart attack. She had been coming into her driveway and stopped to ask some questions while she picked up her mail from the box. We hadn't been chummy neighbors, I'd only spoken to her about three times in the four years since she and Tom had bought the place and moved in before meeting at the mailbox. The thing I most remembered about her from the four years; was that her first name was pronounced in two syllables, with a long E and a short A sound. I think Caroline had only talked with her maybe a half a dozen times, but now I had talked with her at least once a week for the last seven or eight weeks.
Bea is about ten years younger than me and she is only about as tall as my chin, so I guess about 5 ft. 2 inches. She has an extreme hourglass figure with her waist seeming too small for the rest of her. I'd guess she weighs about 120 to 125 pounds. She has rather long dark brown hair with just a touch of red in highlights, and it hangs very smooth and straight. My Caroline was 5 ft. 9 inches and weighed just about the same but with more realistic proportions, and her hair was curly and blonde, just the way I liked my women; tall, blonde and willowy.
So Bea isn't my ideal in women, but most hetero men would not kick her out of bed if they got her into one even if she wanted to eat crackers there. The problem was that she lacked self-confidence and needed a little boost to get back into the socializing game. I was thinking of ways that would give her a starting point back into normal social activities. I took her to a book discussion group run through the local library and she joined the club.
I also took her to a discussion group sponsored by the community center; which is where I found out that she uses the hyphenated name. The discussion that night was about names and how they came about, and we each made and wore a name tag for the discussion. One of the women there was making jokes about those people who had come with someone but had a different name and she noticed that Bea had come with me. She laughed and said she couldn't resist pointing out what Bea's name would be if she married me, Bea Good-Hand-Stroker. Everyone had a nice little chuckle about that, but once the attention moved on, I noticed that Bea was a little distressed.
"Bea, it was just a stupid little joke. Don't let it bother you. No one will remember it tomorrow and you are much more interesting than any little joke that someone makes. If you are worried about it, just think what I went through in high school with my last name. Gym class showers were one long joke session, but in my junior year, I finally came up with the shutdown line that stopped it; or actually, Caroline did, and once I used it, the joking stopped for good. You won't have to do something like that."
Bea just sat there and waited and finally said, "Well, aren't you going to tell me what the line was?"
"Well, okay, but please try not to pass it around... at least, not out loud. Let me tell you the whole story. I had some good friends in school, one was Richard Preston. He was on the football team, he played center. He was about 2 inches taller than me and weighed about 60 pounds of muscle more than me. No one ever got to the quarterback through the center of our offensive line. I asked him to help me with my problem and he asked if I wanted him to pound somebody if they said anything. I told him no, and told him what I intended to do and asked him to go along with it, and he agreed.
"The next time we had gym class and the jokes started, he made a joke, and I gave him the line. 'My girlfriend can't wait to become my stroker, and if you weren't such a puny dick, maybe yours would too!' I thought for a minute that he had forgotten our discussion because he straightened up and looked really angry, but then he blinked a time or two and started laughing before he said that maybe I was right. I never heard another joke in gym class about my name. The funny thing is, after that, quite a few of the girls in the school started trying to get me to give them a call, but I was with Caroline."
Bea just burst out laughing and quickly put a hand over her mouth to stifle the laughs. When she noticed people staring, she gave one of those dismissive waves and quieted a little more. Later, while I was mingling, I noticed quite a few of the ladies pull her aside to talk with her and then they'd stand and giggle together. Even a few of the men made a point to engage her in conversation, which was fine since this wasn't a date date, but a chance for her to get back out to socialize.
***** ***** About four days later...
