I stared at him, stunned to the core of my being as what he said slowly registered.
"Are you sure? I mean is there any chance a mistake has been made?
"I'm sorry, I really am. I wish it could be otherwise, but I'm absolutely sure."
My drive home was an absolute horror. How are you supposed to feel when the doctor tells you that your life is over? How do I tell my wife? How do I explain it to the kids? And why now? Did God look down on me and say, "You've had a good life George. Everything has gone your way and now it is time for me to throw some shit into the game."
One minute the perfect life and the next minute life is all but over. It wasn't fair; it just wasn't fair.
+++++
My life had been storybook. I was the Golden Boy. An A student from the first grade until the last day of college. I excelled at sports and I lettered in four sports in high school. I quarterbacked the football team to the school's first ever Regional title. I pitched a no-hitter and hit a home run against Jefferson - our cross town rival - the only time our school had ever beaten them. I had seventeen colleges offer me scholarships and I chose State.
The football coach took one look at me on the first day of practice and said, "You might have been a quarterback in high school son, but I see you as a receiver."
I thought that the man was crazy, but in my junior year I lead the conference in catches, yards gained and touchdowns scored. I made All American in my junior and senior years and graduated from college with a 4.0 GPA. I was a first round draft pick, but I'd had enough of football and I went to work for the XYZ Corporation and in only six years I made it to Vice President of Marketing, but of all the great things that happened to me meeting Dorthea was the best.
+++++
We met in the sixth grade when the boy's gym teacher and the girl's gym teacher decided to combine classes and teach their students to dance. I was paired up with Dorthea and that started an off again on again relationship that culminated in our wedding two years after our college graduation. From the first time that I took Dot in my arms in that gym class I was infatuated with her. So much so that for the next year I was constantly taunted by my classmates and friends.
"Georgie likes Dorthea" and "Georgie is sweet on Dorthea" is something that I heard almost every day. Sadly, Dorthea didn't feel the same way. Oh she did like me well enough, but she liked a lot of other boys to the same extent. When her parents finally allowed her to date I was just one of many that she would go out with.
Things changed a little when I got into sports. As I became successful I also became more popular and there was a class of girls at our school (as at most schools) who liked to date and be seen with the schools athletes. As those girls began to show an interest in me so did Dorthea. I found out later (in college) from one of Dot's close girlfriends that Dot knew that I was hers and would be there when she got done playing the field. Anyway, when others started paying attention to me Dot decided that she had better take care of business before some other girl lit my fire and made me forget Dorthea.
We started going steady and were a couple almost all the way through high school. I say almost because we had all the pissy assed little arguments that teenagers have and we would break up only to get back together in a week or two. The major bone of contention was sex, or more to the point, lack of it.
Every other guy in my class, at least to hear them tell it, had been laid. If they were to be believed I was the only virgin in our class. I was constantly bombarded with things like, "Last night Becky and I went to the drive-in and she sucked my cock" or maybe, "Did you here about Nancy? She and three guys..."
Try as I might all I could get from Dorthea was some heavy necking with some tongue every once in a while. A hand on her beast would get me slapped and she would say, "If you want a slut call Sally Murphy," and then she wouldn't talk to me for a week. About the third time that happened I did call Sally Murphy, but all that did was make things worse. For one thing, if Sally was a slut she was taking the night off on the two dates I had with her and in the second place Dorthea didn't talk to me for a month after she found out I'd been out with Sally. Then when we finally did end up talking again, we broke up for good.
"How could you do that to me?"
"It was your idea. You were the one who kept telling me to call Sally."
"But I didn't really mean it and you know it."
"All I know is that I'm fed up with being the only male senior in this class who is still a virgin."
"Well I'm sorry George, but I place a higher value on my chastity. I will not engage in recreational sex just to please someone who thinks virginity is a crime. I promised my mother that I would go to my marriage bed a virgin and I fully intend to do just that."
"Well then, I guess that puts an end to us."
"What? Why do you say that?"
"You have already told me that you are not getting married until you finish college and that is almost five years away. I'm not the least bit attached to my virginity and I'm damn sure not waiting for five more years to get rid of it."
"Then I guess we have nothing else to talk about" and she got up and walked away. Okay I thought, if that's how you want it, so be it.
+++++
One month later it was senior prom and I took Nancy Bickford. Dorthea went to the prom with Sammy Vine and while I tried to ignore the two of them every time I looked their way I found Dorthea looking at me. After the prom I asked Nancy which of the many parties she want to go to and she said, "The one at the motel we are going to. You did plan on fucking me tonight I hope."
I was going to argue? Nancy was tickled to death when she found out I was a virgin.
"You're my first," she said, "So we get to do it my way."
