I kissed Kirsten Bäumler goodbye for the last time as I left her house, guitar and amp in hand. It had been a crazy last two weeks. We’d spent time together nearly every single day playing music. We’d jammed alone, with her Dad on piano and my stepfather on bass as a four-piece, and once with the drummer from her Dad’s cover band. We had her friends over once to listen to us, and we’d developed a musical chemistry with each other that was rare and exciting. I’d told her as I was leaving that I couldn’t wait to play again together when she was next back in town, and she’d enthusiastically agreed.
We’d also spent the last two weeks fucking constantly. It was the honeymoon phase of any new hookup where you can’t keep your hands off each other. We’d had sex on the couch, the piano bench and the floor of her basement studio, and occasionally other places in her house when her parents and brother weren’t around. We’d hooked up in the shower and her bedroom. We did it once on the stairs, just because we hadn’t successfully made it to the bedroom, and once out in her backyard on a lovely warm night at 2 AM just to try it out. It was two of the most hedonistic weeks I could remember having, and by the end of it my dick was completely worn out.
Just before leaving, Kirsten had told me that she very much wanted to play music again with me someday, but as much as she’d enjoyed the last two weeks, our sexual escapades were going to have to be over for good. She didn’t want to have any distractions back at the Berklee College of Music in Boston while she was focused on her studies. She didn’t like having to lie to her friends, including my stepsister Vanessa, when the girls talked about the guys in their lives, as keeping our dalliance secret was a necessity given the possibility of drama in her friend group. And most of all, she’d never had casual sex before, and had, despite herself, started developing feelings for me by the end of the two weeks. She told me it was nothing personal, but she wasn’t okay with remaining my friend with benefits if it was going to cause her pain, and she wasn’t at a stage of her life where she was ready to have another boyfriend.
So that was that. It was now June, Kirsten was gone for the rest of the summer, and I was back to square one. Vanessa had been treating me with something approaching kindness lately. I didn’t know why and hadn’t asked, but I assumed it was from seeing how much good I had done in alleviating Kirsten’s stress (she hadn’t known the half of it!). Laura Keelor, the girl I regretted hooking up with at a party in late April, was still occasionally sending me sad, romantic, or aggressively horny texts, which I was ignoring as much as I could get away with. And I was still talking to Monique Lachance, who was still occasionally hinting at the possibility of hooking up with at least one other girl she knew; that is, when she wasn’t bragging about her own lesbian conquests.
Of the remaining possibilities, I hadn’t had a chance to really get to know Michelle MacKenzie or Samantha Fischer. And Natalie Chen, the girl I thought most likely to have the secret crush, wasn’t due home from the University of Ottawa for the summer for another couple of weeks.
For the next couple of weeks, my life was spent studying for the upcoming LSAT exams. Walt’s message about the rules being loosened around the house hadn’t gone unheeded, and both Vanessa and I had started having wine with dinner or occasional beers in the evenings, but I hadn’t had the opportunity to bring a girl home (and certainly hadn’t been willing to ask Kirsten to spend the night). I occasionally noticed Carson around the house when Mom and Walt weren’t around, but I never overheard him and Vanessa being intimate, and she never brought him around when parents were present or had him sleep over.
Things were quiet among the other girls, and since I didn’t have many remaining good friends in my hometown, my social calendar remained bare. I was honestly glad for the chance to get some really good, hardcore studying done.
Near the end of June, the family was seated around the dinner table when Vanessa spoke up.
“Dad, do you think some friends and I could go up to the cottage for the Canada Day weekend?”
Walt looked down his nose at his daughter. “How many friends is ‘some’?”
“I don’t know, the normal group of girls, I guess. We’ve never been up there without parental supervision, but we’re all 18 or 19 now, and you said a month ago that you were going to start treating us like adults more.”
“Hey, I’ve never been allowed to go up there with friends,” I pointed out. “Why should you get to?”
“You can come if you want,” Vanessa offered.
I was convinced instantly. “Walt, can we go up to the cottage for Canada Day weekend?”
Mom laughed. “Dear, they’re adults now. I think we can trust them.”
“No raucous parties? Just a bunch of girls hanging out?” Walt asked.
“I promise.” Vanessa gave her dad the puppy-dog look she gave him when she wanted something, and Walt’s remaining resistance melted.
“I need to check with my brother if his family has anything planned up there for that weekend, but otherwise, sure. But you’re on probation, both of you. If the place gets trashed, you’ll be married with children before you ever get to go up alone again.”
“Thanks!” Vanessa smiled.
“Yeah, thanks,” I added.
A few phone calls confirmed that Walt’s brother did, in fact, have plans for the long weekend at the cottage the extended family collectively shared up north, but the weekend after was entirely free and clear. July was late enough in the year that the black flies would be gone, and the lake would have warmed up enough to swim in.
The cottage was owned by Walt’s parents — Vanessa’s grandparents — and in their advancing years they shared it freely with the entire extended Jelinek clan. We usually went up to the cottage two or three times a summer as a family and once as an extended family, with all of Walt’s relatives there. I never really felt welcomed by them — Mom and I were the only step-family in the entire group — and after a couple of awkward encounters earlier in my teen years I usually found an excuse not to go to the big annual reunion. But in smaller groups, it was a lovely, secluded place on a lake in the middle of nowhere, tranquil, relaxing, great for swimming or just hanging around a campfire with a beer.
The plans came together quickly. Of Vanessa’s friends, Laura, Natalie, Michelle and her boyfriend Jason, and Monique and her latest hookup Becky were coming. Samantha couldn’t get the Saturday night off work, and Kirsten was obviously back in Boston. Carson was also coming (and apparently Carson was his first name!) That made nine, which was already going to be a tight squeeze in the tiny cottage, but the guy and the girl from karaoke night were also coming. I remembered his name was Mark, but apparently hers was Priya, and they were Vanessa’s university friends.
It was a beautiful summer morning when we set out for the long drive. We’d have to go east for forty-five minutes to Toronto, then turn north on highway 400. From there, it was about four hours north on main roads, then an additional forty minutes on back roads to reach the lake, but the trade-off was total seclusion, with only four or five other cottages on that lake. In Muskoka, the place traditionally thought-of as Toronto’s cottage country, the old cottages were being replaced by massive mansions owned by the rich, and Lake Rosseau had been colonized by big city money, but further north it was still quiet, backwoodsy and traditional.
The eleven of us set out in three cars, with me driving Walt’s SUV loaded with food and other supplies. Vanessa was riding shotgun and Carson was in the backseat. We gave directions to the other two drivers and told them we’d see them there — Monique was driving Becky, Natalie and Laura, and Mark was driving Priya, Michelle and Jason.
Once we were out on the open highway, Carson promptly fell asleep in the backseat.
“He’s out quickly,” I commented. We’d barely left the city.
“He does that,” Vanessa said airily.
“I’m not prying, but just so I don’t put my foot in my mouth, is he your boyfriend?” I asked. “We still haven’t really been properly introduced. And despite what your Dad said last month about being allowed to have boyfriends sleep over, I don’t think I’ve ever seen him spend the night.”
“We haven’t put a label on it, but no, I wouldn’t say it’s a relationship.”
I let her response hang for a moment.
“It’s purely sexual,” she added. “I don’t exactly want to have that conversation with Dad, which is probably why we’re still sneaking around a little. Not that that’s any of your business.”
“I’m not here to judge. I was only wondering about sleeping arrangements.” The cottage was a tiny, 1930’s shack, with only three rooms — a small kitchen and dining area, a living room, and one bedroom with a single queen bed. There wasn’t even a bathroom — when the cottage had been built, there had been an outhouse and no electricity or running water. Now there was a flush toilet and shower, but it was in a small adjacent building constructed where the outhouse had once been.
When the four of us stayed over as a family, Vanessa and I generally slept in the living room on the futon and in a sleeping bag. When the entire extended family stayed, people slept in sleeping bags wherever they could find a spot, or pitched tents on the lawn.
“Yeah, I’d thought about it,” Vanessa said. “I was thinking Carson and I would take the bed and you could have the futon, since you’re unattached. I told everyone else to bring sleeping bags. Michelle and Jason brought a tent, because they’re going to want some privacy at some point or other.”
“So I get to sleep on a futon surrounded by six other people?” I asked.
“I don’t care if someone sleeps on the floor in the bedroom,” she answered, “as long as we have some private time at some point. I imagine Monique will want to have sex with Becky too, and I don’t mind letting her use the bedroom. Nobody else coming is together.”