I would have to say (others might not agree) that my life was fairly normal for the first twenty-five years of it. A ‘middle of the roader’ would be a pretty accurate description.
In school I never made the honor role, but I never failed a class. In the sports I went out for I usually made the team, but I was never a stand out star. My extra curricular activities were the Chess Club and the Thespian Society. I won seventy percent of my chess matches (which of course meant the I lost thirty percent of them) and in the plays the Thespian Society put on I almost always got a part, but never the lead.
I did all right in the dating department, but that was mostly because I had a car courtesy of doting grandparents. They gave it to me the day I got my driver’s license.
Well to do doting grandparents also got me into college via a college fund that they set up the day I came into the world.
College was similar to high school in that I got decent, but not stellar grades and that was not because I lacked smarts, but because of the party atmosphere that came with the fraternity that I joined.
+++++++++++++++++++++++
College was significant in that besides the education that it gave me it also gave me a distrust of women. It didn’t start in high school because in high school I never got serious with any of the girls I dated. That changed when I started college. Changed quickly.
The first day of freshman orientation I met Ann Spaulding and felt all warm and tingly inside when she looked into my eyes and said hello. I wasn’t at all shy and I asked her out after talking to her for only five minutes. She said that she would love to go out with me. We had a great first date and seemed to click. The first date led to several more and by the holiday break we were an acknowledged couple on campus and were actually talking marriage.
The first time we made love Ann was worried that I might be upset because she wasn’t a virgin, but I assured her that it didn’t matter. Why should it since I wasn’t one either. Bev Holbrook saw to that at my eighteenth birthday party.
When the holiday break came she went back to Michigan and before she left we discussed going shopping for a ring when she came back. The day after Christmas I was missing her something awful so I dipped into my college fund and caught a flight to Michigan. I landed at Detroit Metropolitan Airport; rented a car from Avis and the GPS system in the car took me right to 411 Campbell Ave in Ypsilanti. I rang the doorbell and a woman I assumed was Ann’s mother answered the door and I asked for Ann.
“Ann isn’t here right now. She and Charlie are out on a date. I think they are shopping for the ring.”
“Charlie?”
“Charlie Ferguson; her fiancée.”
“Ann has a fiancée?”
“For two years now.”
“She never told me. Well, if she isn’t here I guess I’d better get along” and I turned to leave.
“Who should I say dropped by?”
I gave her a made up name and headed back to the airport. I turned in the rental and caught the next flight out.
Ann came back on January second. I was in my room at the frat house when Bill Neubert told me that Ann was there to see me. I went downstairs and she was all smiles when she saw me. She ran to me and put her arms around me and kissed me and then asked:
“Are we going ring shopping today?”
“Why? Didn’t you like the one you got from Charlie?”
“Charlie?”
“You know; Charlie Ferguson. Your fiancée.”
“That was you that came to the house?”
“It was.”
“I can explain that honey.”
“No you can’t. You could talk to me if I was willing to listen, but I’m not” and I turned and went back up to my room.
When I next saw her a week later she was on the arm of a sophomore basketball player.
+++++++++++++++++++++
It wasn’t until spring break that I was willing to try dating again. I didn’t go anywhere on the break because the money I could have used to go was spent on my trip to Michigan.
I was at the mall and I had just come out of Sears when the woman in front of me tripped and fell. When I helped her up I saw that it was a girl who was in my Introduction to Business Law class. I couldn’t remember her name. When I helped her up I noticed that she seemed in pain. I asked her if she was all right and she told me that she thought that she had twisted her ankle.
We were close to the center court so I picked up the packages she had dropped and helped her to one of the center court benches. She had been wearing high heels and somehow the heel on the right shoe had snapped off and that is what caused her to go down. She was worried about how she was going to get around with one broken shoe and when I mentioned that she could go barefoot she said:
“Maybe here inside, but not out in the parking lot.”
I noticed that there was a Footlocker close by and I asked her for her shoe size and then I went and bought her the cheapest pair of tennis shoes that they had in her size. I took the shoes back to Becky (we had exchanged names when I helped her to the bench) and she put them on. Then leaning on me I helped her out to her car in the parking lot. As she got in the car she told me that she owed me for my help and she invited me over to her place for dinner and I accepted.
When I got to the address she had given me I was surprised to see that it was an apartment. I don’t know why, but I had assumed that she was living with her parents. She answered my knock and let me in. It was a pretty nice two bedroom apartment and she had set up the second bedroom as a study complete with desk, desktop computer and loaded book shelves.
She handed me a glass of red wine and we sat and talked while dinner finished cooking. I found out that she was like me in that she had a trust fund paying for her college and she had decided to live off campus instead of living in the dorms or joining a sorority.
Dinner was baked pork chops, mashed potatoes and green beans and before dinner was over I had asked her out and she had accepted. By summer vacation we were a steady couple. She wasn’t going to go home for the summer. She was going to stay in school and take some summer classes. I had a summer job working for my uncle doing landscaping and lawn maintenance so we were able to date over the summer.
By the time school started back up for the fall term I was pretty serious where Becky was concerned and I thought she felt the same about me. Right up until a frat mixer during the third week of classes. I introduced Becky to some of my frat brothers and we proceeded to party. A couple of hours into the affair I looked around and couldn’t see Becky and so I went looking for her.
I found her in a bedroom being fucked by some guy I had never seen before. I assumed that Becky knew him from the way she was crying out:
“Fuck me Tommy; oh god baby, fuck me.”
I walked up to where I could look down into Becky’s face. Her eyes were closed until the guy said, “Hey dude; how about some privacy here” and I said, “I’m leaving. I just wanted to tell Becky that she is going to have to find another ride home. I don’t want her cunt leaking on my car seat.”
At the sound of my voice Becky’s eyes shot open and she started trying to push the guy off of her. I turned and left the room. The only saving grace – at least for me – was that the guy wasn’t a frat brother; just the guest of one.
I drove out to Steven’s Point and looked out over the water and napped off and on until the party was over. At least Becky spared me the “It wasn’t what it looked like” or the “I can explain Honey” or the ever popular “It didn’t mean a thing baby.” I never spoke to her again. The real outcome was that I was soured on girls so I went the rest of my sophomore year without even trying to date.
+++++++++++++++++++++++
Summer vacation was spent working for my uncle again and I was still working part time for him on the weekends after school started in the fall. Three weeks after school started we were putting in a koi pond at an upscale house in the Pinewood Estates. I’d just finished laying the liner when an absolutely stunningly beautiful girl came out on the patio, sat down and watched me work as I rocked the edges of the liner.
She watched me for maybe five minutes and then she got up and went back into the house only to come back out five minutes later with a pitcher and two glasses. She filled one of the glasses from the pitcher and brought it over and handed it to me.
“Here” she said as she handed it to me, “You need to take a break.”
“What is it?”
“Poison of course. Can’t waste the good stuff on the hired help.”
“Oh well, if I’m going to die it might as well be by the hand of a beautiful woman.”
I took a sip and found that it was sweetened iced tea. I nodded an okay and said:
“And who does Bobby have to thank for this?”
“Fiona. You don’t look like a Bobby.”
“Bobby is how I refer to myself. Most other people call me Rob although I have been known to answer to “Hey You.”
“Well then Hey You, come and join me at the table. I want to pick your brain.”
I joined her at the patio table and she said, “I saw you when I took a tour of the campus just before summer break so tell me some of the things you found out the hard way when you were a freshman.”
I took a sip of my tea and then spent ten minutes telling her about some of the pitfalls to avoid and then I told her I had to get back to work.
“I’ve got to have the water and some of the plants in the hole by the end of the day.”
“What time do you get off?”
“When the sun starts to go down.”
“That will be about eightish. Doesn’t give us much time.”
“Time for what?”
“I’ve just appointed you my campus guide. In order for you to be able to do the job correctly we will need to get to know each other. To do that we need to date. The first one will be tonight when you get off work.”
I couldn’t help it; I just had to tweak her and even though I didn’t have one I said, “And just what am I supposed to tell my girlfriend?”
“Goodbye.”
“Goodbye?”
“Yes. You tell your ex-girlfriend goodbye.”
I was intrigued. I wasn’t used to a girl of her age being so self assured.
“I’m filthy and I’ll need to go home to shower and change clothes. It would be nine or nine-thirty before we could even start. I have to be up by six so I need to be in bed by eleven-thirty if I’m going to be worth spit on the job tomorrow. An hour and a half isn’t going to be much of a date.”
“You can shower here and you are about the same size as my dad so clothes won’t be a problem.”
I chuckled and said, “Do I at least get to pick my own best man?”
“We will cross that bridge when we come to it.” She topped off my drink and told me to get back to work. “The sooner you get done the sooner we can start our date.”
I just shook my head and got back to work. As I worked I wondered about Fiona. It wasn’t likely that I would have ever asked her out and for a bunch of reasons. One was you don’t hit on your customers. Another of course was that I hadn’t dated since Becky and was still in an “I don’t need this shit!” kind of mood where girls were concerned. Also it wasn’t likely that I would have ever run into her on campus what with me being a junior and her being a freshman. The two of us dating could only have happened the way it did and who was I to look a gift horse in the mouth.
I finished up about six and Fiona showed me where to shower and when I came out I found that she had brought in a shirt, a pair of slacks, a pair of socks and a pair of penny loafers. Everything fit and when I was dressed I found her waiting.
“We will take my car. I’m not interested in showing up at Adolpho’s in a pickup truck. Especially one with a cement mixer and a wheelbarrow in the back.”
“I hate to burst your bubble Fiona, but Bobby can’t afford Adolpho’s.”
“Doesn’t matter since we won’t be paying anyway. My Uncle Stan owns the place and my dates and I get a free ride.”
I have to admit that I was a little put off by her take charge attitude, but at the same time I was intrigued by it. And also in the back of my mind I was wondering about why this girl was behaving with me like she was. She was drop dead gorgeous, from money, and no doubt had a list of suitors a mile long so why had she pulled a landscape laborer out of the hole he was working in and set up a date?
I didn’t believe for one minute that it was because she needed a guide around campus. True, she probably had seen me when she toured the campus and had recognized me, but there was no doubt in my mind that she knew dozens of guys who went to State and who would have leapt at the chance of being her guide.
We had a very nice dinner and talked as we ate. I learned that she was twenty and the reason that she was a twenty year old freshman was because her grandmother had taken her on a lengthy world tour. She was actually six days older than I was. She hadn’t yet decided what she was going to major in, but was leaning toward Business Management.
When we got back to her house she told me that she rarely ever kissed on the first date.
“I like the guy to have something to look forward to. Some get it on the second date, but most don’t get it until the third. I hope you like classical music because that is where we are going tomorrow. Pick me up at six.”
I told her that it might not be possible because I still had plenty of work to do on the koi pond and landscaping and I might not finish in time to go home and change.
“Bring your clothes and you can shower and change here” and she headed on into the house.
My initial thought as the door closed behind her was to ignore what she wanted and go home to shower and change and if we missed the symphony tough shit, but there were two reasons why I couldn’t do that. One was that it might have an adverse effect on my uncle’s business. A lot of his work came from word of mouth advertising from satisfied customers. I had no idea of how much influence Fiona had with her parents so I couldn’t chance it. The other reason of course was that I just had to see where things were going to go.
When I picked her up she damned near took my breath away. She was gorgeous and she dressed to show it off. I was wearing a dark blue suit with a red silk tie, but along side Fiona I looked like a bum. I was sure that people were going to look at us and wonder why she was with a guy like me and of course I was wondering it too.
It was an enjoyable evening. The program was Mendelssohn’s Symphony’s No.3 and No.4. The “Scottish” and the “Italian” both in A major and both favorites of mine. After it was over I took her to Denny’s for pie and coffee and she told me about her world tour with her grandmother and told me that someday she would like to live in Spain.
When I got her home she gave me a scorcher of a kiss, told me that she would let me decide what to do on our next date:
“Which will be tomorrow. Give me a call and let me know what time you will pick me up and how I should dress.”
The next day was a Monday and a school day and I had planned on spending the evening working on my car, but Fiona fascinated me and I decided to go along with her program even though I didn’t have a clue as to what her program was.
I decided to see how a girl into world tours and symphonies would handle more plebian pursuits. I called her at eight in the morning and told her that I would pick her up at five and to dress in jeans. When she asked what we would be doing I told her it was a surprise.
“I don’t do surprises well” she told me and the tone of her voice when she said it did not set well with me so I decided to show a little backbone where “Miss I’m in Charge” was concerned and so I said:
“Too bad. It would have been fun. Take care and maybe I’ll see you around campus.”
“Whoa! What do you mean by that?”
“You don’t want my surprise so I’ll just go by myself and since you don’t seem to like the way I do things I don’t see much sense in trying to do things with you.”
“Don’t be silly Rob. That’s not what I meant. I’m just a girl who likes to be prepared when I do things. I didn’t say I wasn’t going to go. Its little things like how to dress. For example; you said jeans, but I have dressy jeans and I have jeans for bumming around in so which do I wear?”
That sounded reasonable so I backed off a little and told her to wear her bumming around jeans.
I picked her up at five and we went to the miniature golf place on North Wilcox and played. There were several kids there that I knew and I introduced them to Fiona. After we finished there I took her to the Burger Barn for dinner and then it was over to Skate City. I don’t know if she enjoyed the evening, but I sure did.
When we got in my car to take her home she slid over next to me, kissed me on the cheek and then sat next to me all the way to her house. When I pulled into her driveway and put the car in park she said:
“Kiss me Rob.”
I did and we sat there for the next half hour and engaged in a steamy make out session. It ended when my hand went under her top and fondled her breasts. She pulled away from me and said:
“Not yet Rob’ it is too soon for that.”
She kissed me again and started to get out of the car. I got out and walked over to her side of the car and walked her to her door where she kissed me again and said:
“I’m free all week except for Wednesday. Call me.”
As I drove home I was still wondering what was gong on. What was Fiona playing at? She was a steak and caviar girl and I was a burger and fries guy. Her interest in me made no sense at all. At least it didn’t to me. That said I was going to hang in there. Our being together didn’t compute although I wished it did.
We dated for the next two weeks and our make out sessions got hotter and hotter and we had reached the point that I was finger fucking her and she was giving me hand jobs. I kept pushing her for ‘the full ride’ and she kept saying “Not yet” or “It’s too soon.”
The Saturday at the end of the second week was her twenty-first birthday and we were on for dinner and a movie. I picked her up and gave her a card and the present I’d bought for her. She read the card and said, “That’s just so sweet Rob” and then she opened her present and exclaimed, “I love them honey” and she took off the earrings she was wearing and put on the gold hoop earrings I’d given her.
In the car she moved to her usual spot – right next to me leg touching leg – and I drove us to Duke’s Steak House. Over dinner she told me that she didn’t want to go to the movies.
“I want to celebrate my twenty-first birthday with drinks and dancing. Take me to The Black Mushroom.”
“I can’t do that. You might be twenty-one, but I won’t be twenty-one until next week.”
“I’ve got that covered” she said and she handed me a driver’s license in the name of Ronald Cummings and it said that he was twenty-two. In his picture he had a beard and Fiona said:
“It is my Cousin Ron’s license. All you have to do is say that you shaved since getting the license.”
I shrugged and thought, “What the hell; all they can do is refuse it so I might as well go for it.”
They didn’t refuse it. They never even saw it. They carded Fiona and then assumed that her date would be as old as she was or older and they waved us in. The guy at the door gave Fiona a piece of paper to give to the waitress.
“We give everyone who comes in here on their twenty-first birthday a drink on the house.”
I don’t know about Fiona, but I was no stranger to alcohol. I’d been drinking wine with dinner (one glass only) since I turned sixteen and beer since becoming eighteen. I ordered a beer and Fiona asked for a Cosmo and then we drank and danced for the next three hours. I limited myself to two beers which I nursed because I was driving, but Fiona had half dozen drinks before we left.
I pointed the car toward Fiona’s and she said, “You are going the wrong way Rob. You need to turn around and head for Wilcox.”
“Why?”
“I’m giving myself a birthday present” and she opened her purse and took out a key card. It said Quality Inn on it. I gave Fiona a confused look and she said:
“I told you that I was giving myself a birthday present. I’m giving me you.”
I quickly realized what she was saying and I hung a U-turn and headed for the Quality Inn.
Fiona was not a virgin, but neither was I. We undressed and climbed on the bed and I surprised her by going down on her instead of immediately climbing on. She worked us into a sixty-nine and after a bit we broke apart and made love while as I sang Happy Birthday to her. She sucked me hard and we went a second time and then I ate her to an orgasm while I waited for my cock to get hard enough to go for thirds,
The third time was doggie and as I screwed her I was looking down at her rosebud. I’d never had anal sex and I wondered if Fiona would go for it. As I banged away at her pussy I worked a finger into her ass and she moaned:
“What are you doing? You want to get nasty with me? You want my butt hole?”
“I wouldn’t mind.”
“Do you have any KY or Astro-Glide with you?”
“Nope.”
“Then you aren’t going there this time. Maybe next time.”
There wouldn’t be a next time, but I didn’t know it then.
We finished and I took her home. I walked her to her door, got a goodnight kiss and went home. I called her the next day to set up a date for the next day and what I got was:
“It was fun Rob, but summer is over and I need to concentrate on school and I won’t have any time for foolishness.”
“Foolishness? You call what we shared last night foolishness?”
“It was only sex Rob; get over it” and I heard the click as she hung up on me.
“Fucking cunt” I muttered. “First Ann, then Becky and now Fiona. Fucking bitches aren’t worth the trouble” and that was the mindset I carried through my junior year.
++++++++++++++++++++++
I didn’t date, but I didn’t go without pussy either. I knew two girls who were paying their way through college by engaging in the world’s oldest profession and I made good use of them. I saw Fiona around campus, but when our eyes met she would look away.
I also saw her at the frat house when we had parties. The girls from Lambda Delta Psi were always invited and Fiona belonged to that sorority so I saw her at parties, but we ignored each other. It was the middle of my senior year when I found out what Fiona had been doing with me. It was at another frat party and Fiona was there. I was off in a corner nursing a beer and looking at her whenever she was looking away from me. I heard:
“Still carrying a torch for her?”
I turned and saw Nancy Neubert standing there.
“No. Just curious is all.”
“No feelings for her at all?”
“I can’t say that.”
“She isn’t worth it you know.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because of what she deliberately did to you.”
“Deliberately did to me?”
And then Nancy told me the story.
Fiona informed Lambda Delta Psi that she would be joining when she started school. That’s right – she informed them and the way she did it pissed off the pledge committee Fiona didn’t have to go the usual pledge route. Her mother, grandmother and two aunts had been Lamb Delts so she was a legacy, but even legacies have to go through the hazing process. Two of the members of the committee knew Fiona and didn’t like her to begin with so the committee decided they would lay a chore on Fiona that they expected that she would refuse to do and then they could deny her membership.
The Lamb Delts were tight with my fraternity and the Lamb Delt girls knew about what happened with me and Becky and they knew that I had stopped dating because of it. They told Fiona that she had to seduce me. The committee figured that she would refuse to do it and if she didn’t it wouldn’t matter because they were sure I wouldn’t succumb to her. She had to seduce me. She couldn’t just come up to me and offer me pussy and she couldn’t come right out and tell me that she had to fuck me in order to get into the sorority and would I please help her out. She had to meet me and seduce me.
She had to keep the committee informed of her progress and let them know when it was going to happen and where. Two members of the committee were sitting in a car in the motel parking lot watching us go into the motel room and when we left they went inside to check out the sheets for cum stains to verify that Fiona had actually done the deed and hadn’t spent the time playing cards or something. After Fiona had accomplished her task she no longer had any use for me. It was pure chance that I was working on her parent’s koi pond and landscaping.
I debated finding some way to get back at Fiona, but then said, “Fuck it! The cunt isn’t worth the time” and I finished out my senior year, found a job and got on with my life.
++++++++++++++++++
The next three years were spent concentrating on my job. I didn’t date because after my experiences with Ann, Becky and Fiona I pretty much felt that most women were cunts.
I didn’t go without pussy though. One of the girls I had used in college decided that she could make more continuing what she did to pay her way through college than she could putting her Business Management degree to use and we had stayed in touch.
I figured that using Shirley when I needed relief was cost effective. No need to date a dozen times to work yourself into the woman’s good graces (and pants) when all I had to do was pick up the phone and call Shirley. A date for dinner, drinks, dancing or maybe a show could run from seventy to a hundred bucks a night. Ten or twelve dates even at the low end could run you seven hundred bucks and with no assurance that you would eventually score. Dinner and a show or drinks and dancing with Shirley with sex to follow ran around four hundred and she was a sure thing. An if I ever needed arm candy for a company party or an event put on by a client Shirley was usually available.
Work and visiting Shirley was pretty much my life from graduation until my third anniversary at work. Work had been going well. I’d gotten two promotions and the money was better than good so when my boss asked me to stop by his office I expected that he had something that he wanted me to do. I expected that it would be about business, but I was wrong. Way wrong.
I walked into his office and he smiled at me and told me to take a seat. I sat down on the leather couch he had in his office and waited for him to tell me what he wanted. He looked at me and it looked to me like he was trying to figure out the best way to bring up what he wanted and when he finally did speak he surprised the hell out of me.
“Are you in a relationship Rob? Got a steady girlfriend?”
I wasn’t about to tell him about Shirley so I just said, “No sir.”
“I have a problem Rob. I’m in a bind and I need a favor. A very big favor and it has nothing to do with work.”
I sat there and kept my mouth shut and he went on.
“When my first wife and I divorced she took my then six year old daughter and moved to Georgia. The ex was killed in a botched bank robbery a week ago and my daughter is coming here to live with me. She is transferring schools and will be starting as a junior at State. My problem, actually her problem and my problem, is that she has never been out here since she was six and as a result she doesn’t know anyone out here and I don’t know anyone even close to her age except you. I need some one to take her under their wing so to speak and show her around. I was wondering if I could impose on you to take on the task.”
I couldn’t help but remember the last time some one wanted me to show them around and how well that turned out for me, but this was my boss asking me for a favor and I didn’t feel I could refuse him and still stay in his good graces.
Another thought I had was that he could bring his daughter into the business and I could conceivably end up working for her and it wouldn’t hurt for me to be in her good graces. Self preservation had me saying:
“Of course. I’ll be glad to show her around.”
Hank smiled at me and said, “I knew I could count on you. Do you have any plans for this evening?”
“No. Nothing planned other than doing some laundry.”
“Then consider yourself invited for dinner. You can meet Michelle and get to know each other. Say sevenish?”
As I went back to work I couldn’t help but wonder what I’d gotten myself into.
++++++++++++++++++++++
I rang the doorbell at seven on the dot and the door was opened by an absolute vision and I thought “This ain’t going to be too bad at all.” Look up Goddess in the dictionary and what I was looking at is the picture that you would see. And then she burst my bubble.
“You must be Rob” she said as she offered me her hand. “I’m Hank’s wife Ronnie.”
I hope my face didn’t show my disappointment when I took the offered hand and told her that I was pleased to meet her. She led me into what I assumed was the living room where I found Hank watching a news program. Ronnie asked me what I would like to drink and I saw that Hank was drinking beer so I told her a beer would be fine. Hank turned off the TV and said:
“Glad you could make it. Mouse is upstairs dressing. I didn’t tell her we had company coming until I got home from work and she was up to her elbows in grease and oil. She was doing something to her engine.”
“Mouse?”
“It is one of her nicknames. Long story and it goes back to when she was three. My mother didn’t care for the name Michelle so she always called Michelle Mickey. It caught on and soon everyone was calling her Mickey. Around her fourth birthday she got hooked on The Mickey Mouse Club and Mickey Mouse cartoons and after hearing Mickey Mouse said over and over one day, since she was always being called Mickey she pointed at herself and said:
“Mickey Mouse?”
“Everybody laughed and started calling her Mickey Mouse and somewhere along the line the Mickey got dropped and everyone started calling her Mouse. I don’t think that anyone outside the family uses it though.”
Ronnie came back into the room and handed me an ice cold Bud. As I took it from her a girl walked into the room and Hank said:
“Here she is now” and he introduced us. As I shook her hand I was thinking about Hank’s explanation of the family nickname for her. Mouse fit her. While goddess in the dictionary would have had Ronnie’s picture next to the definition Michelle’s picture would be next to the word mousey. A closer look showed that she could look better if she put some effort into it.
She was about five two or five three and she was dressed in a baggy sweatshirt and baggy pants. She was wearing horned rimmed glasses that were too big for her face and all you could say about her hair is that it was brown and there. It was sitting on top of her head in a big bun and had no style to it at all. Add to that she wasn’t wearing a smidgen of makeup. Mousey looking is indeed what came to mind.
Ronnie said that dinner was ready and we all sat down at the table. Conversation was general in nature and when the meal was over Hank said to Ronnie:
“Why don’t I help you do the dishes and we can leave Rob and Mickey to get acquainted.”
Hank and Ronnie were no sooner out of the room when Michelle said to me:
“How much is he paying you for this?”
I knew what she was really asking, but it pissed me off that not even knowing me that she would assume that her dad was paying me to be with her so I said:
“Five grand.”
“Get serious. How much is he paying you to put up with me?”
“I told you. Five grand. Actually it is a little more than that if you figure in the bonus I usually get at the end of the year.”
“What are you talking about?”
“What your dad pays me. Five grand a month although with bonuses I probably averaged about fifty-four hundred a month for the year.”
“Are you saying that he said he would fire you if you didn’t volunteer to be my babysitter?”
“In the first place I’m not your babysitter. Because I was born and raised in this area and because I went to State your father asked me if I would show you around as a personal favor and I told him I would be glad to.”
“Why does he think I need to be shown around? I managed to get from Georgia to here all by myself. Why wouldn’t I be able to find my way around this place?”
“Maybe he just wanted you to know someone close to your age you could ask questions of. Then again maybe he sees me as a prospective son in law and he is trying to give us a head start.”
“In your dreams.”
“More like nightmare.”
“I’m not that bad.”
“I didn’t say that you were.”
“Then what’s with the nightmare remark?”
“I don’t see marriage in my future. I’ve been burned too many times and I just don’t trust the female of the species any more so to me the thought of marriage would be like a nightmare.”
“We are a matched pair then. I’ve been burned a couple of times and I don’t trust the male of the species any more than you trust the females. So where does that leave us?”
“That’s pretty much up to you.”
“Why is it up to me?”
“Your decision Miss Michelle. Do you want me to show you around or not?”
To be continued.