Chapter 1
I've had a good life for the most part: an interesting career, two grown children that love me, and a good tenured position in a mid-sized university teaching advanced biochemistry and conducting research with a number of grad students. All in all, I'm very happy.
I did go through a fairly difficult divorce, however, that was no doubt the most unpleasant stretch of my life so far. I won't go into a lot of details but just say that my former wife is now living with the guy.
About eight months after the divorce, I had established a reasonably workable schedule for myself in my new role as a bachelor in my mid-sixties.
My routine was fairly set with teaching and research to supervise, class preparation in the evenings and an hour or so for personal needs including a little self-pleasure. Life does go on, you know.
I did cook several nights each week, depended for food other nights on the wide variety of ho-hum frozen fare available at any supermarket these days and got takeout once or twice a week. So, I existed fairly well.
Breakfast, well, I opted to eat at a small coffee shop near campus where I quickly became a regular. The place was rife with habitues of all types and I soon noticed a young woman, well, to me, young, a bit older than college-age, probably in her mid- to upper-twenties, who was also there every morning often sitting at the next table from me.
I had started playing that game many of us play in trying to guess the lives of people we see around ourselves and I had figured that since she seemed to be going through the newspaper and making lists each morning that she was probably most likely looking for work.
The coffee shop was a cozy place and I got to enjoy it for an hour or so of seeing many of the same people and regarding each other in a friendly manner.
One morning the young woman came in and brought her order past my table and I nodded and spoke just to wish her a good day and she replied that her day had just ended and that she was looking forward to a few hours to herself before she had to pick up her child from school.
I had wondered if she might have been a returning student but, no, she worked overnight cleaning business offices and such to help put her husband through school. She ended her workday, or night, actually, in time to take her daughter to school, then have breakfast while she planned her next day's activities. Her husband, she told me, was due to graduate at the end of the term and they would then probably move so he could take a job in international banking in a major city.
So, after graduation I quit seeing her in the coffee shop each weekday and had, of course, assumed that she and her husband and daughter were off to a new life together.
But, then one day the next week, I was pulling my usual croissant apart when I looked up and she was walking right toward my table.
"Can I talk to you?" she asked. I nodded and she sat down. I knew her name was Jenn and she looked rather serious, not like she usually had, happy and cheerful.
"I need someone to talk to and you seemed nice, also with some experience in life. Do you mind?"
I only had some reviewing to do on several research projects, so told her that my time was hers.
"Maybe you can help me understand what has happened to me. You knew that my husband was graduating and after he did, he told me he had a new job in London, in England. Well, I got really excited and that's when he told me that I wasn't going with him, we were over and I could keep the baby."
"Oh, I'm so very sorry," I tired to console.
"So, he packed everything up and left that night. He even had the nerve to thank me for putting him through college but he was off to a new start in a new country and didn't want me as part of it."
"I'm sorry you got treated this way, Jenn, really sorry. You certainly didn't deserve that."
"Well, at first I was upset, of course, but later, after he was gone, I just couldn't understand how a man could leave like that and even leave behind his own daughter. Can you help me understand what it is about a man that he could do that?"
Well, as you know, my field is not psychology or marital counseling but she wanted my thoughts and I tried to help her state of mind.
"Well, Jenn, as you know there are two kinds of men, those who take and those who give. This sounds over simplistic but you got one who felt he was entitled to whatever he was offered in life and you got the short end of that. Were there any hints as to the kind of guy he was?"
She proceeded to tell me of how he always wanted them to do what interested him and never what she wanted to do. That and many other examples.
She ended saying, "I guess I should have known, huh?"
We talked more and she realized that she had a house, a reasonably nice car that was paid-for and her daughter was in a good school and that, even though she works hard, she makes a decent living and was able to support herself and her daughter.
I got a kiss on the cheek for my counsel and we began having coffee each morning after she dropped her daughter off for school. I suppose it was two rather lonely and slightly forlorn people but we enjoyed one another's company.
About a week went by when I realized as I was dusting the furniture that I knew a perfectly good contract cleaning person who could take care of all these chores that I had found rather noisome and decided to ask Jenn the next morning if she would be interested in cleaning my place once a week.
This kicked-off the cleanest my house had been in years as she came every Tuesday after I was at the lab and tidied the place up. It was not just clean but also relieved me of the chore.
So, our arrangement went on for about a month, we were still seeing each other over coffee each morning, she had more or less accepted the fact that she was starting her life over and I was glad to have done my rather small part in that.
Then, one day, I was at my office when I realized that I had left some papers at home which, thankfully, is only about a half-mile away.
I pulled up and saw Jenn's car, remembering that it was Tuesday, and went in the unlocked front door, she had her own key, and was immediately met with a blast of rock music from upstairs. Since that was where my office was, I went up and as I turned the corner at the top of the stairs, there she was, on the guest bed, her pants over the footboard, her knees raised and her hands down between her thighs moving rapidly to the music.
I just stood there stunned for a second as she suddenly realized she wasn't alone.
"Omigod," she cried, "I didn't hear you."
"Sorry, oh, I didn't know, I'll leave you to yourself," I mumbled embarrassedly.
Then, totally unexpectedly, she said, "Would you want to watch?" as she reached over and turned off the radio.
I was actually silent for a few seconds, it really did take me back. I realize that younger people are more open about sex and their bodies but that I really wasn't expecting.
I think she realized my surprise and added, "I really don't mind if you watch. After all, you're all by yourself, too. And, it would help get me off."
Well, I'm no fool and she was a pretty young woman so I replied, "Yes, I guess I would," and I pulled up a chair and sat near the foot of the bed.