by Frank Martinet
My name is Tom. My last name is Jefferson. Please spare me the routine. I've heard them all, believe me. My mother really wanted me to go by Thomas and was crushed when I began insisting on Tom, but I was tired of all the ribbing.
I am 42 years ancient. Until a miracle happened a few months ago, I was miserably single. I had pretty much resigned myself to bachelorhood when I met Samantha. This is the story of our courtship, the improbable courtship of a geeky middle-aged wimp and a beautiful 28-year-old blonde goddess, and the miracle that bound us together. Literally.
First, let me tell you about myself and my history. It's really boring, I know, but you won't really understand what a bombshell Samantha was in my life if you don't know how miserable and alone I was before.
To put it bluntly, I'm a geek. I'm a nerd, a social incompetent. I almost always was, too. I'm not really bad looking, but I'm awkward and I don't carry myself well. For instance, I'm very tall, 6'5", but I'm useless at sports. Too clumsy. I'm also extremely thin and frail, though lately that's changing.
I wear glasses, of course, and I'm extremely studious. I'm an engineer for Boeing. My work is really my life, or has been. Sometimes I'll work all night on a particularly tricky problem, trying to come up with a solution. Most people just use technology and have no real appreciation of how truly difficult the design and engineering is.
My lack of social skills isn't all my fault. My father was a Colonel in the Army. Our home was run like a military camp. Order and formality were the rules. At school when the other boys would be running and playing and pulling the girl's pony tails, I'd be inside helping the teacher dust the erasers and wash the blackboard. Needless to say that didn't help my social standing.
Just before high school my dad got a promotion of some sort and we had to move to Brussels, Belgium. We thought it was going to be for a year, but it turned out to be just six months. Then we were in Spain for four months, and then we moved to Washington, D.C. for almost a full year. It continued like that all during my high school years. We moved eight times in those four years, including my senior year, just three months prior to graduation. I had to graduate with a bunch of strangers.
I'm not blaming everything on my dad. He was a good man, a very good man. He loved me and cared for me, but we were never very close. I could never discuss something intimate with him, something like my social troubles. Besides, he would have just ordered me to ask a girl out or something, not advise me on how to do it.
My mother was very gentle and kind. She and I got along great during my high school years. I was very obedient and helpful to her. I loved her very much and though we could discuss my career and interests and other things, I never felt comfortable discussing sex with her. She just didn't seem the type. She'd blush just seeing a turkey baster.
Anyway, all through high school I became extremely self-sufficient. I studied hard and made very few friends because my studies seemed to be the only thing that transferred with me to my new schools. I had a few friends that promised to write and keep in touch. I never heard from them. Perhaps they tried but we had moved on. I don't know. But it left me feeling rather alone and not very trusting.
College continued the tradition. I was a loner, shy and reserved, unless it involved structural engineering or aerodynamics, my pet hobbies. I asked a few girls out, mostly acquaintances or dates my roommates set up. I never went out with anyone I really cared for or wanted. I had a number of crushes, but they were always with those super-popular girls, you know the type - the one with about fifteen members of the jock strap club on her arms, the jocks docilely following behind her, licking the soles of her feet just to be near her. I didn't want to be like that. It revolted me, and though I desired such pretty girls, I could never bring myself to act like such fawning jerks.
There was one girl. Her name was Erica. She was an engineering student, like me. Pretty, in a quiet way; very docile, very conservative, a good student. We became pretty good friends. We shared a lot of interests, and we had many involved discussions over engineering theories and problems. There was nothing sexual, at least not initially. Soon I began to really grow attracted to her. I began to dream of her, late at night, occasionally, though I tried desperately to resist the urges, even masturbating while I imagined her climbing up onto the library table in front of everyone and slowly undressing and telling me she wanted me, she secretly loved me, and she wanted us to make love right there on the research table.
Of course the next day nothing like that happened at all. She'd be polite and tell me how brilliant I was, and I would challenge her with some new theory of mine and she'd answer it with a clever argument I hadn't anticipated, and before our first class we'd be deep into five-syllable words and obscure references.
But I slowly grew more and more desperate, resisting the urge to fawn over her, but trying everything I could think of to please her and demonstrate my deep love for her. I brought her flowers. I bought her dinner. I even took her to an engineering department social. But there was no sexual overtone. We were just friends. Everything was relaxed and normal. I resolved to tell her of my feelings. It took me over two weeks to screw up my courage and outline what I wanted to tell her. I called her on the phone one day.
"Erica, I need to talk to you. Can we meet at three at Murphy's?"
"Sure, Tom. I've got some wonderful news to tell you!"
"Really? What is it?"
"Wait until we meet. I want to tell you in person."
By the time three o'clock had rolled around I had almost called her three times to cancel the meeting and forget everything. But somehow I held on and at five after three Erica came in. She was beautiful. Slim, dress elegant yet casual, accented by a loose white jacket. Her face was beaming and she raced straight to my table. She seemed very excited.
"Oh, Tom, I know you wanted to talk to me but I just can't wait to tell you! Look!" She held out her arm proudly, and I stared blankly at her hand, not understanding. "He asked me to marry him, Tom! Isn't that wonderful? We've set the date for June 17. You're invited, of course. Isn't it wonderful? Isn't that the most beautiful ring you ever saw?"
Stunned beyond words, I just stared at the sparkling thing on her finger and couldn't even breathe. This was impossible, ridiculous, but true. The proof was right there in front of me, on her finger, indisputable. "Congratulations, Erica," I managed. "I had no idea you were even dating anyone."
"You remember John, don't you? I introduced you to him that time he met me after class to take me to the basketball game? We've been going together ever since."
My mind whirled and I vaguely remembered a tall, athletic-looking young man, very handsome, obviously out of Erica's league. At the time it hadn't occurred to me that it was anything serious. Erica dated infrequently, perhaps a few times a month, always with a different guy, usually someone one of her girlfriends had set her up with. I hadn't thought that time was anything different.
I was crushed. I brushed off Erica's questions about what I had wanted to talk to her about and left rather rudely, hurting her I suppose. I never saw her much after that. She seemed sad and sorry, and I think she guessed the truth, but I never told her. I didn't go to her wedding. Sadly, I don't know what happened to them since.
Well, I graduated from college and did some graduate work, and started working for a small start-up company in Seattle. It was very successful at first, and my designs were extremely well-received. But the company's marketing was terrible, and within three years of my joining them the corporation folded, and I was without a job.
Then Boeing called me. Seems someone there had liked my designs and had heard what happened to Dunlatch Corp. and wanted me in for an interview. The position was a dream one. I would get to work with some of the top engineers on the planet, and the salary was a hefty one, almost double what I had been making at Dunlatch. I accepted on the spot and a week later I started.
The years just flew by. I was so absorbed in my work I barely noticed. The technology was changing right and left all around me and it made my job incredibly exciting. The airplane industry was booming and everything seemed to be going well. I got promotion after promotion and became a senior level engineer by the time I was thirty-five, at least ten years ahead of most.
Many of my ideas were patented by Boeing and earned the company tons of money and influenced the industry. One of my inventions, a small gasket, was even stolen by a Chinese manufacturer and there was a big lawsuit and international uproar over the event. I had to go to Congress to testify before a committee regarding my patent. In the end we won, but it was a long six-year battle.
When I was forty-one my father died. Though at the time I went back home and comforted mother and such, looking back I realized I barely noticed. Not that I'm uncaring and unfeeling, but I was too involved with work and I really hadn't been close to my father for years. I loved him, but he was just the distant figure that put food on our plates or took me into his bedroom for a whipping when I was bad.
A year later when Mom passed away the shock finally hit me. I was alone. My grandparents had gone when I was very young. Now my parents were gone. I had no brothers or sisters. I was alone. At forty-two years of age I realized that a large portion of my life had slipped past me and I discovered dating at 42 was even more difficult than dating at 22. I was miserable.
I threw myself back into my work with a vengeance, but it wasn't much help. I was lonely. I bought a dog. It helped some, but whenever he did something really cute I wanted to share it with someone. There was no one there.
Something else began to bother me. I realized with astonishment that I was still a virgin. I'd never really intended for it too happen like that, but it was true. I'd never had sex. This bothered my ego greatly and troubled me at night when I lay alone in bed, fighting off the urge to go look at one of those magazines I keep in a box at the bottom of my closet. I felt humiliated and ashamed, and I wondered if it showed. It made my talking with women even more difficult. Could they see what a wimp I was? Could they tell I was a virgin?
I began to panic and had all kinds of horrible nightmares about it. I had this one dream of a beautiful woman who took me to bed. She pushed me back against the bed and began to pull down my pants. I was hard, of course, my penis huge. When she took down my underwear my cock popped out and she began to laugh hysterically, saying she'd never seen such a tiny weeny. I woke up drenched with sweat and wondered if I was going insane. All my childhood terrors were coming back and they were much more intense and twice as humiliating because I was at an age that should have overcome these fears long ago.
I tried to seek out professional help, and failed. I don't mean a shrink. I couldn't imagine telling all this to a doctor. No, I tried to pick up a whore. Doesn't sound that difficult, does it. But I failed. Four times I circled the block. I could see several, walking the streets with those mini-skirts and way too much lipstick. I wasn't especially attracted to any of them but boy my dick was hard as a stick. But I couldn't stop. I just didn't have the nerve. They'd know in a second I was a virgin and they'd laugh at me. It was too humiliating. I drove home and shamelessly spread out all those magazines in the living room and spent the night spraying my come all over the furniture.
In the morning I felt exhausted and frustrated, and strangely, very angry. I was in a terrible mood. I thought about calling in sick but the concept of sitting at home all day and masturbating like some freaky pervert made my stomach turn. I drove to work, miserable and ashamed. My dick hurt too, from all the activity of the previous night. I wished I was dead.
I had been at my desk for scarcely an hour when I heard one of the junior engineers making crude comments about a new secretary. "She's got huge bazoombas," he said, or something equally childish.
"Knock off the sexist remarks, Dave," I scolded. "It's the 90s, you know. Do you want to get sued?"
"Well! Who stuck a dowel up your butt this morning!" he sniped back and walked off.
I tried to go back to work but now I couldn't concentrate. I kept hearing Dave's stupid remark in my head. I decided to go grab a soda from the rec room. As I came back with the soda I passed the main lobby of the R & D section, where the secretarial pool is located. As researchers we don't each get our own secretary, but we put our requests into the pool and they divide up the work.
I stopped in my tracks and stared. Sitting at the desk near the paneling I would have to pass on my way back to my office was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen in my life. She had huge waves of blonde hair falling all around her head and shoulders, graceful, smooth, silky hair, like in those TV shampoo commercials. Her face was exquisite, chiseled out of soft granite and shaped to perfection, curled lips, button nose, high cheekbones, the works. Her eyes were large, almond-shaped ovals, and as she was looking away from me I could see the white of her eyes. I love a woman's eyes. You can tell more about a person from their eyes than anything else.
I approached, stumbling slightly, lost in a daze. I was vaguely aware that this woman had a sex-kitten body, with huge "bazoombas" and a trim figure. Her dress was slim and simple, an elegant white that showed off all those delicious curves. The neckline was tight and her breasts were well-covered. Conservative but sexy. I liked it a lot. I liked her a lot. I couldn't take my eyes off her.
Suddenly I bumped smack into the partition in front of her and she looked up at me, straight into my eyes, her mouth opening slightly in surprise, the lips curling slightly in an amused smile, her teeth white and perfect. "Can I help you?" she said with a pleasant, efficient tone, all business. She spoke to me with respect, probably because my ID badge showed I was a senior-level manager.
Without a thought in my brain, completely unconscious of the other secretaries or how incriminating this would sound to a sexual-harassment judge, I blurted out, "You are a goddess!"
The awe in my voice must have amused her, because she smiled and blushed slightly. "Thank you, sir, but I don't really think that's appropriate."
In my fog I completely misunderstood her. "It's completely accurate," I said quickly, hearing myself talk and wondering who was controlling my speech. "You are indeed a goddess, far too pure to be walking among mere mortals like myself."
She blushed again and graciously dropped her eyes. All that color made her far more attractive. "Sir, I don't think you should be telling me this. It might be misconstrued," she said quietly. She looked very embarrassed.
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