Chapter 1

The weather forecast for August twenty-first in Scranton Pennsylvania called for a high temperature of ninety three degrees, not a record for the date, but plenty hot, and made more so by a dew point nearing eighty degrees, thus assuring a substantial amount of humidity to add to a person's discomfort. It was generally felt that a dew point temperature in excess of sixty-five degrees created a weather condition in which most people felt quite uncomfortable. August twenty-first was college "move-in" day on many college campuses across the country, and that was quite evident by the log jam of cars and parents and suitcases all trying to converge on the various dormitories on those campuses. Quite often, upperclassmen from a campus organization would volunteer to assist the parents and new students arriving throughout the day. Those volunteers were a godsend to the parents, for sure. The dads' faces conveyed their concerns that all goes according to plan, that they have paid the correct fees, come to the correct dormitory and their sons or daughters are properly registered. The mothers' faces, on the other hand, displayed their heartfelt concern that their "baby" or their "first born" or whatever was leaving the nest, and would be out of the protective arms of mom for the very first time. The children's faces showed cautious enthusiasm and a modest level of excitement as they were about to begin an entirely new phase in their lives.

Buckingham University, on the north side of Scranton Pennsylvania had experienced "move-in" day for more than one hundred years, and this day was proceeding exactly as it had for as long as anyone there could remember. The streets around the campus were clogged with motor vehicles, everything from the basic Chevy sedan to the vans that the moms used to drive the soccer teams to practices. There were even a handful of stretch limousines with uniformed drivers unloading volumes of luggage from the trunks of those cars. Access to the student parking lots was nearly impossible save for the daring few who were willing to drive across a few athletic practice fields to gain entry. The congestion had begun in earnest by ten o'clock and was in full dress mode before noon. It would continue until nine in the evening and resume the next morning at eight o'clock, repeating the prior day's activities until all invitees had arrived. One of those invitees was a young man named Jeff Myerly. Jeff was beginning his second year at Buckingham, but had not yet declared a major field of study. His records showed him to be a remarkable student, extraordinarily brilliant in mathematics and with an uncommon grasp of most of the fields of study in high school.

Jeff's childhood had been anything but easy. His mother died when he was barely two years old, a victim of a surgeon's mistake in an operating room. Jeff had been their first child, and since neither his mother nor his father had grown up in central Ohio where Jeff was born and as a result, after his mother's death, there were no relatives nearby to help with his upbringing. Jeff's dad had been a business professional, working in an office in the next larger city, and he tried to find alternatives to simply placing Jeff in an infant day care program, but could find nothing he felt was suitable for the situation. His father had sued the physician and hospital, and after several years of litigation, settlements had been reached which allowed Jeff's dad to become a stay-at-home dad for Jeff.

Shortly after the financial settlement, Jeff's father had a swimming pool installed in their back yard. It was larger than most, and very elaborate, complete with a small pool house with a changing room, and a clothes dryer to dry the wet suits. By the time he entered high school, Jeff had managed to install hidden cameras covering three different angles in the dressing room. Jeff's single opportunity for a social life centered on that pool and he made the most of it by having his classmates over for pool parties as soon as the temperature allowed. After several camera adjustments, Jeff began to accumulate a very nice collection of spy cam videos of his classmates putting on their swimsuits in the pool house. He would spend hours at his computer editing the tapes, admiring the developing bodies of the girls in his films and fantasizing about sex with them. He was surprised at how many of the girls had not yet developed much in the way of pubic hair. He had already concluded that a girl's bush was an indication of her readiness for sex, at least from a developmental standpoint, and was quite disappointed when he learned that a favorite girl actually had not as much as he had hoped. He wasn't quite sure why he believed that, but the conclusion appeared to be logical, so he went with it.

As the years went by following his mom's death, depression came to visit the Myerly household again. His father had been sitting at home for years, experiencing none of the life that he had studied and trained for as a career, missing the camaraderie of business relationships and facing none of the mental challenges required in his profession. He began to rely on alcohol for his motivation, eventually reaching the level that Jeff became the "grown-up" in the family, doing all of the housecleaning, grocery shopping and cooking for the two of them. Shortly after Jeff's sixteenth birthday, his father's body succumbed to the abuse inflicted by the alcohol.

Immediately some citizens of the community sought to have Jeff enter the foster children program, but Jeff, through the good efforts of a compassionate attorney, was able to show that he was competent, self sufficient, and capable of living on his own. The judge, in deciding in Jeff's favor, cited the concurring recommendations of the school principal and several of Jeff's teachers, all highlighting his maturity and intelligence.