Chapter 2

Before leaving for college that first year, Jeff spent one week organizing everything that remained in his house. He put things critical to him for college in one stack, things he wanted to keep for other reasons in another, and what remained he inventoried and designated to send to a local charity. When he was finished, he packed the collegiate necessities in his car and then packed the retained items in a container and had them moved to a public warehouse. As his final action in the town, he called a realtor and listed his house to rent or sell.

The next morning, move-in day one year ago, Jeff was at the dorm with his single suitcase. The lone suitcase suggested to those that noticed that this individual may not be intending to stay the entire semester. Jeff had no intention of dropping out. He just had no means of moving the rest of his things in his two passenger car. He checked in to the dorm, received the key to his room and rode the elevator to the ninth floor, his one suitcase in hand.

His was a single room, not because he was unsociable, but rather, because he had never been required to share anything in his life; he was not about to have his bedroom be the first thing he ever shared. He quickly made friends with his dorm room neighbors, swapping stories about high school experiences and sexual conquests. Living in the dorm was a requirement for all first year students, although many second and third year students continued to live in campus housing as well. Included in the dorm residence fee was the availability of three meals each day in a rather non-descript building called Central Dining.

Central Dining was a two story rectangular building with windows on one side of the second floor. The building itself sat in the center of a block U arrangement of other dormitories. Sadly, when it was constructed, no one imagined how beneficial it would be for the students to have enclosed walkways connecting their dorm to Central Dining. As a result, from the date of the first snow of winter until the rains subsided in spring, students from three dorms were forced to endure the brunt of Mother Nature's worst as they walked to eat a meal.

He also learned of another University rule: the door of an individual's room must remain open whenever a member of the opposite sex is in that room. Jeff was not thrilled with that rule; it would seriously impact his dating life and not for the better. But Jeff had encountered rules before, rules that were made for the common good, but failed to consider the challenges of a young orphan trying to make it on his own. Jeff was quite accustomed to finding ways to circumvent rules. While he may have been required to live in the dorm his first year, there was no rule saying that he could not maintain an apartment off campus as well. By Tuesday of his first week in Scranton, Jeff had located a nicely furnished two bedroom apartment about three city blocks away from his dorm. He leased it for the year, paying all twelve months in advance, and, on a lark, registered it under the name of his high school principal.

He soon realized that Central Dining, besides serving good food, has another benefit as well. It was a wonderful place to meet attractive young coeds. His charm and sincerity combined to completely disarm any concerns the girls may have about going out with him. To them, it seemed as if they had known him for years instead of minutes. He was a good looking guy with a soft voice that just asked them for a date.

Once he secured their agreement to go out on the weekend, while they ate their meals, Jeff would learn about them, about their classes, their schedule and their interests. The next day, he would meet them for coffee at the student center, and maybe later that evening, meet them at the library to study something. On their official date night, he would take them to dinner at a better restaurant, possibly catch a movie somewhere, and then drop by "his friend's" apartment. By the second weekend, he had charmed them into "his friend's" bed. Jeff was very careful to never use the "L" word to these girls, nor to ever allude to any long term relationship. If any of his dates ever started down that path of conversation, Jeff tactfully and politely reminded them that theirs was a relationship of friendship with benefits, or as he put it sometimes, companionship with sexual relief. The frankness of that discussion typically brought a quick end to their dating.

As a freshman, Jeff's class requirements were entry level everything, the basic courses required to establish a strong beginning for each student. The structure of each class was centered on the average student's intelligence and capabilities. As such, Jeff became bored with each lecture ten or fifteen minutes into it. At the mid-term exam, before handing in his paper he wrote a note to the instructor asking "Is this all you have?" Naturally, those notes did not sit well with his instructors and at a meeting with the Dean of Students and the offended faculty, Jeff offered to take their final exam right there, and live with whatever grade he received. No one accepted his offer.

He continued to attend his classes regularly, and at the end of the first semester, he was one of ten first year students to receive all "A"s. He decided that for his second semester classes, he would much prefer to have his first lecture not begin until 10 o'clock or so, thus allowing him to sleep a little extra each day. It also meant that with some of the girls he dated through that semester also having a later start to classes, they were more willing to spend the night in the apartment.

As classes came to an end in the spring, Jeff reflected upon what he thought was a rather novel dating routine. He had mastered the meet and greet portion in Central Dining, expanded the meet for coffee hour to include her roommate just for more comfort, and then marveled at how easily they followed him to the bedroom in the apartment. The school year, he realized, could be divided into six week segments; one week to meet the girl, then date and bed her often for the next five weeks before mentioning the poisonous words about friends and benefits. He had met and enjoyed six different girls over the two semesters, and even with all those distractions managed to receive straight "A"s in all courses in both semesters. Because he had taken more classes than most students, he had more credit hours on his record, and with straight A's in all classes, his class rank was number one among all first year students. That may have been impressive to someone, but Jeff simply said "eh..."

The house in central Ohio had been sold before Thanksgiving, and as a result, Jeff really had no place to go when classes ended in the spring. He stayed in his apartment for a few weeks, then headed out on short trips, just a day or two, to explore parts of the east coast. He discovered Virginia Beach and enjoyed it enough that he hung there for a week. He was mostly impressed with the number of very attractive girls that he met as he walked the beach, but his joy was short lived after he was stung on his leg by "some creature from the deep". When the pain became substantial, he went to the emergency room for treatment. With the help of the pain relievers that they prescribed, he endured the discomfort but concluded that swimming in salt water did nothing for him.

He returned to Scranton until he was completely recovered, hobbling around when his leg hurt him and trying his best to follow the doctor's orders about recovery. By July he declared himself fit for traveling again, this time heading west. The July Fourth weekend in Chicago, Jeff decided, required every living citizen of that city to spend the weekend on the beaches. Discouraged by the difficulty of simply moving around in the crowds, he headed north into the suburbs. Being a non resident, he was denied access to the beaches in the first two suburbs but followed a car full of young people into the parking lot of another beach and was waved through by the guard without question. The water in Lake Michigan was cold but it was clean and there were no creatures to sting him again. The beach itself was incredibly well maintained, an indication, he thought, of the wealth of the community and of their expectations. When he asked someone there about the sand, he was told that it was sifted each morning by a special machine that removed all the sticks and trash that had washed in overnight. Jeff thought that was a bit extreme but said nothing in response. He was quite content to just sit on the beach and enjoy the warm temperature. By mid afternoon he had been invited to join in a game of beach volleyball with some other young people, playing through three games before opting to sit and relax.

He noticed one girl who had not played in any of the contests, and he couldn't recall even seeing her in the water earlier. When he decided to sit out, he placed his towel next to hers and introduced himself. She told him her name was Sharon and they made small talk for some time with her dominating the conversation. She asked about his life and he told her about growing up in Ohio, initially omitting the part about technically being an orphan. She asked about his year in college and then laughed when he told her about challenging his professors. Eventually she asked more probing questions, learning of the traumatic part of his youth as well. The only thing he learned about her was that she lived about five houses north of the beach and that she had reached her limit on being in the sun for that day. She was cute, he thought, but with the big straw hat and oversized sunglasses, it was hard to tell. At least she had a nice figure.

Jeff was more than a bit surprised when, as she folded her beach towel into a carry bag, she invited him to dinner. "I know that this is sudden," she said, "but might you possibly be available for dinner this evening? It is at seven o'clock, and please try to be there on time. Also, it would be best if you wore a coat and tie." She said it in a friendly way, but also in a manner and tone that her invitation was more of a direction.

He thought she was joking about the coat and tie. "A coat and tie, in the summer?"

"Well, you don't want to appear boorish," was her reply, and he realized that she was serious.

As Jeff drove past the beach entrance for the second time that day, he began counting houses. She had said that hers was the fifth house north of the parking lot but he had already driven the equivalent of two city blocks and was still on just the third house. Finally he saw the driveway entrance, another block or more away. The property was surrounded by a tall wrought iron fence and as soon as he pulled into the drive, the gate closed behind him. He stopped his car immediately to just look at the house. It was made of stone, he could see, with steel framed casement windows, indicating to Jeff that it had been built early in the twentieth century. One of Jeff's many, but unusual, interests was studying the architectural of older houses. The building was quite large, three stories with high ceilings on the first level. He scanned the yard quickly and realized that the iron fence appeared to completely surround the property. The grounds were immaculate; he had never mowed his own grass to look as nice as this did. Running the full depth of the property on each side, the iron fence was mostly hidden by well manicured, mature shrubs, creating a very private property. "Who the hell has a cobblestone driveway these days, and how do you clear it of snow in the winter?" He thought to himself that this was not a house, it was an estate!

Jeff continued up the drive, parking his car at the top of the circular drive. The massive front door opened as he approached and he was greeted by name by an elderly man dressed in some version of a tuxedo. Jeff paused as he entered, awed by his surroundings. He knew that houses such as this existed, but he had only seen them in magazines and movies.

"Please wait here in the library, Mr. Myerly. Miss Dickinson will join you shortly," the old man said as he led him into a room off the center hallway. The library shelves were mahogany, lined from floor to ceiling with volumes, some newer and some appearing to be very old. There was a ladder with brass wheels running along a track, something that he had only seen in pictures of old houses. He pushed it easily with his hand, rolling it nearly the length of the room. The other walls were leather paneled, and the floor, Jeff realized, was marble. Against one wall were two matching leather high back chairs separated by a small table and lamp, a billiard table was at the far end of the room on his left, and a very old rolltop desk at the end nearest him on his right. "This isn't just wealth," he thought to himself, "this is an entirely different lifestyle." He was looking at some of the old photographs on display when the door opened again.

When she spoke, he turned to look at her. "Thank you for coming on such short notice. I'm very glad that you are here."

Jeff did not respond. He couldn't! He just stood there, saying nothing, looking at the girl that had just entered the room. When he finally said something, the only thing he could say was, "My God, you are beautiful."

He didn't know what else to say. Of the hundreds of girls that he had seen in his life, not one came anywhere close to being as beautiful as this girl. He was awestruck. He felt like an idiot, but he really didn't know what to say. There had been no warning, no indication that she was so beautiful. He had only seen her on the beach with her face covered by enormous sunglasses and her hair neatly contained in a wide brimmed hat. Eventually he apologized for his rudeness, but insisted that he had simply not anticipated seeing someone of such beauty walk into the room.