Darcy

 

 

A Close Approximation

The following happened years ago and my personal behavior had nothing to do with it. I was to became an unwilling example that all men are lying, cheating scum.  Also, it shows my habit of wanting to meet again people from my long ago past. 

I’ve had to heavily redact the story as those involved will easily recognize the event, should they find this. In the end though, this isn’t a story that’s that scandalous, just another life’s experience of mine and how some people are.

In my old social working days, I was dating a goody-two-shoes nerd-girl who was not all that well liked by the other women at the job. You see this all the time, a group of women come together and one of them has to be on the outs. It gives the other woman a chance to stigmatize and shun their favorite target. If you wait a week, they move onto a newer target and abuse her. I know this doesn't occur just with women but are they artists at it. I remember seeing it done fairly well by girls in my kindergarten class. How they learn so early on!

NerdGirl as I’ll name her, rarely drank and if so, it was a watered down Midori liquor. She never smoked pot and enjoyed saccharine Hallmark romantic TV shows and other hobbies most people would call straight-laced. To sum her up, she was a very proper girl. The other women I worked with were far more debased by life and “street” and cynical from experiencing dodgy childhoods. Add to that when they grew up and then married, they created their own dysfunctional families. Nerd girl had her own ghosts in her past but they weren’t the shitty experiences of having to fight for crumbs in the street of a real lower blue collar neighborhood, where everyone targeted one another and at the same time, were potential victims of theft and abuse themselves by their own kind. It’s funny how those from that kind of harsh environment can instinctively sniff out those who never had to experience that. These street types respond with such resentment and see the intact one as weak and as a target to immediately pilfer from. White trash would you call them? Too harsh?

There was one I worked with, Darcy, who openly admitted to being an out right whore who would sell herself for a weekend to a guy who would cough up $500 (in 1988 dollars), and also pay the expenses for a nice time in Newport, preferably on a yacht if he owned one. If the mood struck her to make extra money, she’d hang out in various mafia bars in North Providence and her reputation, being well known, would attract a customer. One time she arrived at work one night and I watched her dump her purse onto the table and shuffled stacks of $20 bills, commenting she had been “worn out” the whole weekend by some married guy she met. The tone of her voice sounded like she was glad for some time off now, at her real job. Here’s another example of the kind of women she was. She did have a long time ‘since teen years’ boyfriend but it was purely economical. Remember when “bras” where a thing to have on cars? They were this leather shield that was fixed to the front end of a car to repel road debris that might chip the paint or otherwise damage the car. The 100% leather ones weren’t cheap. I chanced upon a conversation when Darcy spoke of how she got her boyfriend to pay for one. “It cost me three blowjobs and two fucks!” No joke, she blurted it out loud to the other women there, in response to some lurid conversation they were having. I heard this as I stumbled upon them at the right moment.

In Darcy’s defense, she just wasn’t only an opportunistic harlot, there was more to her. She was a 24 years old and adorable. At best, she was five foot one inch tall and she fit the gamine description fairly well. Gamine? Think of Audrey Hepburn or Emma Watson who look far younger than their age due to their short height and forever fresh faces. Darcy had some personality features gamines have, a tomboyishness that granted her an ability to swap out a water pump on her car (I watched her do it once). Though for her boyish mechanical abilities, her car looked like a teen girl’s bedroom. All decorated with fluff, frills, several Betty Boop dolls and the interior smelled of White Diamonds perfume.

She generally seemed like a perpetual child, never having really grown up. She was taken with acting silly, wanting attention and “stuck” being 13 forever. That was tempered by her childhood street experience that makes kids like that more mature than others but in only certain ways. That life develops uglier talents in kids in order to survive but does nothing for real growth. Darcy also had an animated personality if she was in the mood. Being that small, she managed to learn that if you’re going to be heard,  then be charming, entertaining and she acted the Class Clown at work. I saw her once, at a major staff meeting with the administrator of the eight facilities, purposely rock herself over in a Barca lounger chair. Everyone knew she did this on purpose and everyone laughed anyways. It was Darcy being Darcy, wanting that attention.

I will admit this, she was a really strange mix of traits I had never seen in other women I had known in my 23 years, but down deep, her heart was in the right place, generally. She never wanted to viciously harm someone to get ahead and her choice of how she was going to make it through life was her decision, alone and not based in meanness. Her being a Whore with the Heart of Gold may seem stereotypical but it was true, she did trade her body, using her quite powerful magnetism to get guys to do her bidding for a “deal.” She didn’t care who knew it and acted like it was commonly known anyway. To her, it was given that women have that kind of power and were foolish if they didn’t use it.

****

One of the reasons I became attracted to NerdGirl was her transparency. She wasn’t hiding much of her background at all. She had only ONE sexual partner in her life which she married but divorced when he strayed a few years later. Any worldly harm she endured wasn’t so crippling that forced her to hide ugly truths, like so many of other fun and exciting roller coaster ride women I was attracted to, and who never wanted me to discover their pasts and knowing that if I knew, I’d judge them poorly. In short, NerdGirl had a good nature. She was so much easier to deal with vs. the ruined, hurt-early-in-life types who always had ulterior motives, or if not that, blew like fragmentation grenades when they melted down, spraying shrapnel and demolition to anyone near them when they went off.

So in time NerdGirl and I look like an item at work because the other women pick up on how we are acting differently with one another now. That pisses off Darcy and Dana. Those two were peas in a pod work friends who both came from similar “street” upbringings and the sight of NerdGirl made them want to throw up. No one’s that good in their estimation. To them, no women gets away being scarred by life and recovers that well to be happy again.

The two would harangue NerdGilr that I “wasn’t really the one” as all men, regardless, are scum. NerdGirl protested that I wasn’t like that at at all. Well, NerdGirl was placing me a bit too high up on the moral hygiene scale, but there was one thing about me that was true, serial monogamy. One girl at a time please, no hidden girlfriends. Juggling more than one seemed like far too much work and by nature, I wasn’t that socially adept enough to pull that kind of thing off. I’d fuck it up somehow attracting irate boyfriends. I was happy with one for the time being.

Darcy and Dana then hatched a plot to prove to NerdGirl that I was like all the rest. Dana convinced Darcy to show up late at work when I would be alone to seduce, fuck me and tell NerdGirl all about it. I had NO idea that this was about to occur whatsoever. None at all.

Most times, Darcy would relieve me and do her shift as our schedules dove tailed like that. We two would talk a while before I left and I had the habit of taking off my glasses and leaving them on the table or put away in the cupboard. It was time for a new prescription and my eyes would tire from the strain. So many times I just wouldn’t wear them. Everything was blurred but so what, I knew where everything and everyone was, just don’t ask me to read anything one foot from my face.

Sooo...one Sunday night she shows up for her shift and when she came in, she was in this short red dress, her hair done up in waves and she smells great. She was a pretty girl to begin with but I rarely seen her put together and it was somewhat stunning this time around.

“You coming from a club? You out partying tonight?” I ask her. She had come to work like this before, after a night’s fun ready to do her third shift, but this time she was more striking than usual.

She mumbled something that I barley caught and what was odd, she was very nervous. I got little eye contact and she seemed rigid. Usually she was quite extroverted and easy going.

I sit down at the table and whip off the glasses and we talk like we always did. She was six feet away and leaning against the wall, still hesitant and anxious. As I was talking about something, she, out of nowhere, grabs the hem of skirt and pulls it up past her face for a good two seconds and then drops it.

I just froze in my chair. “Did I just see that? What a segue from nowhere!” Without my glasses I know things are blurry but I could see just well enough to see she wasn’t wearing any panties.

There was a good 10 seconds where we both were silent and looked at one another. Mind you I had NO idea that I was being tempted and set up. Add to that I knew Darcy had a boyfriend and 99% of the time, I left women like that alone, it was far too messy to try to navigate that cheater’s lanscape and, to top it off, I had never been flashed like that by a girl who I considered just as a “friend.” I had never had any girl try to change a friend relationship in nano-seconds in this manner before. It was way New To Me! I sat there unable to react because I had no clue as to where any of this was coming from. All I could focus on was...”Why? She never ever did anything like this before.”

Those few seconds pass by when Darcy lets out this squeamish, unready anxious squeak from under her breath and runs from the room to the back office. I didn’t follow her nor did she come back out. I gathered up my things and drove home.

“What the FUCK what that about?” I thought to myself on the way home. She never ever hinted about any attraction to me before. I ran possibilities in my head but none seemed to make sense. Oh well, I knew Darcy to be who she was and this probably was par for the course for her, to yank up her dress for guys, but why all the nervousness? Was it as joke? Or say her far too forward attempt at “Hey, I really like-like you!.”

 

*****

I kept the event to myself, not bothering to tell anyone nor did I bring it up to Darcy when she did come back on the following days to do her shift. I acted like I had seen nothing just to spare her the awkwardness of what she had done...and the awkwardness I felt as well.

A week later, Dana, her coworker buddy, follows me into the back office and then asks, “Why didn’t you do her?”

“Huh? I say.

“Darcy, she got all dolled up that night to come to you and you just sat there...are that that blind w/o your glasses?”

I’m not understanding this yet but now know Dana is informed about what happened that night. 

 

Before I can speak she says, “Darcy did that to prove to NerdGirl that you would’ve jumped at her when she flashed you...I put her up to it but Darcy chickend out at the last minute.”

It then all fell into place. Now I know and it seemed true as I knew those two were, earlier on, trying to convince NerdGirl that I was just as sleazy as the next guy, hence the plot to prove it.

I knew Darcy to be a pig but like all whores, they themselves have some scruples and being put up to doing that didn’t sit well with her. She apparently wasn’t loose enough to do anyone, at anytime, anywhere, for any reason. 

 

*****

 

A month later I tell NerdGirl what had happened, well, what didn’t happen, with the proviso she not react to this nor complain to the other two. Explosive relationship problems at work do not look good. Well, that was a huge mistake, I waited far too long, even at times thinking I shouldn’t say a thing at all but figured it would get out anyway, so I should say something. She flew to those two and ripped them both apart in that back office. That was my cue to take the company van to make a run to the pharmacy to pick up some drugs for the clients. It made for great gossip at work for a couple weeks I found later.

*****

30 Years Later…

Being an admitted snoop, I Google people I haven’t seen in decades and Darcy was one I looked up several years ago. It took some work but I found she had left Providence and was living in South Kingston with a guy 20 years her senior. I toyed with the idea of seeing her again as we did know each other for such a long a time back then. Hell, just show up and say “Hi” I thought.

I plug her address into the Garmin and since I was working on Main St in Warwick, I was closer to her than my home and might as well try.

I find the street and ride up and down it trying to spot the house but the street was badly lit. Then out of nowhere I spot the 1968 Oldsmobile Cutlass she turned into a teen girl’s bedroom in a driveway. She still had it! It was as immaculate today as it was then. I knew it had to be her as no one had a car so femininely tricked out like hers was.

I sat there idling in the street, now getting cold feet about materializing on her front steps 30 years later. Even though my initial curiosity started strong and led to my decision to see her, it waned quickly as an abrupt appearance was not feeling “right.” What the hell was I going to say? “Whatcha been doin’ these past 30 yrs Darcy?” I had once unexpectedly appeared at childhood friend’s home to do the same thing, knowing the suddenness would add to the drama to my arrival. But that was a boy I knew from then and we had a nice time going over the old times and he was genuinely happy to see me. Darcy...was a little bit more emotionally charged and complicated to pull off.

I drove away home.