The Romantic Misadventures of Dwight T. Middleman - Widower

INTRODUCTION

Here's the scenario for the ongoing trials and tribulations of Dwight T. Middleman - recent widower.

Dwight T. is just settling into his second marriage when his wife Dorothea has a seizure while they are in the act of love-making and dies.

Both had busy careers and so this was an activity which 'D & D' (as they affectionately referred to themselves,) only indulged in once a week as a prelude to jumping back into the dog-eat-dog world. Every Sunday night, right after 'Desperate Housewives.'

With the exception of Dorothea, no one was more surprised than Dwight when she died in his arms. When she went into convulsions and thrashed around, he just assumed that he had finally discovered that 'G-spot' thing he had read about in Dorothea's back issues of Cosmopolitan.

"YES!" he thought to himself at the time - I be Da Man!

But when she didn't wake up when it was his turn, Dwight got worried and then had to man-handle the woman he loved by performing CPR on her and then calling 911.

Dwight mourned for what seemed like days. In actuality it was months. Then he decided it was time to move on and so he moved on up to an early-retirement community highrise called 'Stayin' Alive' on the outskirts of town. Second-floor balcony apartment right over the shuffleboard court.

It should be pointed out that Dwight just felt that he needed a change. He was still almost five years shy of the official retirement age. And for someone who had spent the major part of his life in the accounting department of Lumley's Automotive Parts, mandatory retirement couldn't happen fast enough. Dwight had sensed a change in the women at work not long after he had stopped wearing black after Dorothea's untimely demise - as he preferred to refer to it.

He had noticed that the sympathetic smiles now came with a barely noticeable accompanying flick of the tongue along the lower lip. He had noticed that when two of them were at the water-cooler, they stopped talking as he passed them on his way to the can.

Occassionally, he would catch snatches of their whispers after he had squeezed past them - "did you hear, she died in the saddle, riding Custer's horse onto Little Big Horn." Or "Word is that he had pleasured her to death."

In all truthiness, if Dorothea was around to comment, she would appraise Dwight as having been a good provider and a good father-figure for their two cockadoodle pups - Paris and Blanket. And that he was a kind ("kinda gentle, then kinda rough") but adequate lover on their weekly romps in the sack.

Like all men of course, Dwight thought he was more than adequate. As Dwight T, was prone to yelling out upon reaching his climax - "The 'T' is for TERRRRRIIIIFFffic." As far as he was concerned, as a stud, Dwight was the greatest thing since the discovery of ejaculation.

And on the sixth month anniversary of Dorothea's death, Dwight unexpectedly found himself back in the dating game again. Unexpected because this time around, he made no effort. In fact, a relationship with a woman was the last thing he wanted. And that seemed to only make them want him more. To Dwight's complete dismay, things just kind of fell in his lap.

Before long, Dwight was getting more tail than you could shake a turkey drumstick at.

No one was more surprised about this than Dwight. At the age of 59, Dwight looked good for his age but even he knew that his days as an Adonis were long behind him. Just the same, although he made no effort at living a healthy lifestyle, he still looked pretty good. In recent years he had detected a slightly receding hairline which was barely noticeable if he tilted his head upwards at a certain angle. He was about twenty pounds overweight, but that disappeared when he sucked in his gut. And the black-frame glasses he had worn since high-school were now back in style and so he looked cool again.

But when it came to women, Dwight didn't understand it at all. Suddenly, he was the man every woman wanted to sleep with. They were all curious about a man who could deliver an orgasm so intense it could possibly kill you. Like snatching Life from the jaws of Death. In his social world, at parties, after he had left the room, Dorothea's old friends would whisper and then giggle about 'Mister Terrific.' At work, their code name for him was 'Don Draper.'

Dwight of course, never said 'no.' Whether it was some well-meaning best friend of his dead wife who told herself she was only doing this out of pity, or that crazy nutbar from the mailroom with the death wish, Dwight didn't turn any of them down. He didn't want to hurt their feelings. Plus there was the fact that after six months of mourning, he was horney. Plus there was the fact that he was lonely. He missed Dorothea.

As for the sex, sometimes it was good, sometimes it was memorable. It was never bad. As for the 'relationship' part, sometimes it was adequate. But usually, after the woman had rolled off him and fell asleep, Dwight would ask himself the same question - sometimes like a prayer of thanks, sometimes not - "What did I do to deserve this?"

Then he would remember the way Dorothea looked when she was buttering toast or when she sat up in bed reading with her glasses on and the strap of her nightgown falling off her right shoulder and then he would turn over on his side, his back to the woman and try not to cry.