I Was An Emotional Prostitute Part 18

When I was about 12 years old, mother took us to her friend, Liz’s house to stay for a few days. Liz had three children herself, two boys and one girl, so we had company. Turns out Liz’s 18 year old nephew was staying there, too. I took one look at him and had a crush on him. At first, I just kind of hung out near him. Then, as I felt safer, I’d talk to him. To him, I was just the daughter of his aunt’s friend.

From then on, if we were going to Liz’s house, I hoped he’d be there. As we’d get closer to her house, I’d crane my neck to look out the car window just in case he happened to be moving around outside. Not that he ever was, but hope dies hard.

He joined the army at some point and became a helicopter pilot. One night, I couldn’t sleep for some reason. Dorn was up ironing his uniform for the next day so, I got up then walked over to where he was. He looked at me and said, “What’s up?”

I told him I couldn’t sleep, so he invited me to sit at the table while he finished ironing his uniform. As I sat there, he talked with me like I was a person, not a young girl who belonged in bed. He told me stories about being an army helicopter pilot such as how when flying one day, he and his co-pilot “copped a case of the munchies” as he put it, so they checked the area. There was a Dunkin’ Donuts nearby and they could see that there was room to land and no one would get hurt, so they landed. They ran over to the shop, bought some snacks, then got back in the air. What they didn’t count on was being caught on radar. When they got back to the base, they had to report to the commander’s office.

He also told me that when the men were in the desert, they often wore nothing more than a pair of sunglasses because it was so hot. There were no women there at the time, so that wasn’t an issue. I looked at him with my jaw on the table and said, “Really?”

“Yep. No one else around for miles, so why not?” I just shook my head as I tried to imagine that.

The last time I saw Dorn at Liz’s house, he’d recently gotten out of the army. I was dating Danny. My crush on him hadn’t abated, so I did what I could to be in his presence, even though Danny had come with us. As I sat on the floor in front of the couch where he was sitting, I looked up at him and realized he was very different from the man I’d met a few short years ago. His hair was longer for starters. The thing that really showed how much he’d changed though, was when Danny presented me with a bracelet. He claimed it had been made by “Speidel.”

Something about the bracelet didn’t look right for a Speidel product, so I flipped it over. On the back was stamped “Avon.” I looked up and said, “This was made by ‘Avon.’”

Danny looked at Dorn then said, “She can read!”

They laughed like it was some big joke. I looked at Dorn and thought, “What happened to the kind, respectful man I used to know?”

I never did figure that out. When we left that day, I eventually forgot about him as Liz moved her little family half way across the country for several years. We did get word at one point that Dorn was in the hospital and they weren’t sure he was going to live, but he did.

Years later, I arrived home from a long day at work to find another car parked in my usual spot. After parking on the street, I walked up to the house to see a heavyset figure standing in front of the sliding glass door with their back to it.

When I opened the door, the person turned around. To my surprise, it was Dorn’s aunt Liz. I walked in, put my stuff in my room, and then started talking to her. During the course of our conversation, she mentioned that Dorn was living in a town nearby. I asked how he was doing. While she answered I frantically thought, “Dorn? Dorn? Who’s Dorn? Oh, yeah, her nephew upon whom I used to have a crush.”

It’d been so many years that I’d forgotten all about him. As we talked about him, she told me he was divorced and was always looking for someone to go dancing with. I told her if he’d teach me the kind of dancing he liked to do, I’d go with him. She said she might bring him by someday soon. Shortly after that she left.

I asked mother how they’d reconnected after all those years. Turns out her daughter and my brother, Michael saw each other in a fast food restaurant and had a moment of mutual recognition. They exchanged contact information, including mother’s number, which she passed on to her mother.

About a week or so later, I was working late as my boss hadn’t come in to relieve me, when my mother called me at work to tell me that Dorn had called. Not only that, but he’d asked for me. “He asked for me,” I said in surprise.

“Yes,” she said. I didn’t know what to think. I certainly hadn’t expected that. On the drive home that night, I worried about what we’d talk about. After all, we hadn’t seen each other in about 20 years at this point and the last time I’d seen him, he’d been a big jerk.

When I got home that night, I paced anxiously as I waited for him to call again. I wondered what we’d talk about. I mean, it’s not like we were great friends back then. When he did call back, it was if we’d always been friends. We talked for over two hours, during which time we made arrangements to get together that weekend. At the end of our call, he gave me his number and told me I could call him if I wanted to talk before we met up again. Then he told me that he’d changed. I tried to tell him that I had, too.