The Lake House Lessons 12

Before they could say anything, Ariel looked at Sarah and said, pleasantly but firmly, "What you think happened, happened. We keep this among ourselves, like the other stuff, right?"

Sarah agreed, and Steve pointed out he didn't know what the "other stuff" was, but agreed anyway. We had coffee and breakfast, and began to prepare to go home.

I found myself alone with Steve at one point, cleaning the lake area, and he said to me, "I want you to know how much I like your sister,"

"She is amazing," I said, sincerely.

Steve continued, "When I first saw her at The Black Hat I could see that she was beautiful, and I was just looking for a hookup. When I found out that she was a sorority girl from State, I figured she would be an airhead, but I was so wrong. She is a smart, funny and incredibly sexy woman and I'm lucky that she wants to be with me. Because I know that she could have almost any guy she wanted."

I thought about that for a second before responding. "I'm glad, too," I said. "She seems really happy with you. You seem to treat her well, and I hope it works out for you guys."

"Thanks," he said.

"So," he continued, "what really is the deal with you and Dana and Ariel? With all due respect, you seem like a good guy and all, but, seriously, dude, you just graduated from high school and had a threesome with two super hot sisters? Ariel is gorgeous, and Dana is off the charts. Most of my friends would literally kill their own mothers to be you."

I laughed. "I'd rather be lucky than good," I said. "Seriously," I continued, "I really am lucky. I'm not sure how much Sarah told you, but until Memorial Day Weekend, I had never been on a date or had a girlfriend."

Steve said, "Really, she hasn't told me anything."

"To make a long story short, Ariel was my first, sort of as a favor to Sarah, and then she suggested to Dana that I tutor her in physics, and one thing led to another."

Steve looked at me with surprise and said jokingly, "You got Dana because of physics? You must be in the nerd hall of fame."

We laughed, and I said, "I don't 'have' Dana, and I'm not sure anyone ever will, but I do get to screw her, which is pretty damn good."

Steve high fived me, and said, "enjoy it while you can, I guess."

I responded, "Keep treating Sarah right, and I think the two of you will have a great time together."

He nodded.

"By the way," I asked, "can you get me some of that hash? That was incredible."

Steve said, "Let me see what I can do. Yeah, that shit is great."

We returned to the house, finished straightening up, packed the car and drove home. I sat between Dana and Ariel in the back seat, my discomfort from the lack of leg room counteracted by the two dazzling women resting their heads on my shoulders. As we drove home, I tried to figure out what made the lake house such a magical place, alternating by trying to remember more details about the night with Dana and Ariel.

EPILOGUE

After the weekend at the lake, I was still confused. I knew that Dana liked me, but she always held back before committing. I wasn't sure what her reasons were. It could simply be what Ariel said, that she had commitment issues. Or that she was still convinced that I was too smart for her, which was bullshit. Or that she really wasn't sure about me. Or that she was basically playing games with me, letting me see other girls, including her own sister, expecting that I would come crawling to her, giving her the upper hand. And the pre-Memorial Day Weekend Jack would have done that.

I was concerned that she always seemed to want to control everything, even telling me what other girls to date. She told me that Gina was right for me, and in some ways, she was right. She "allowed" me to have sex with her sister. And she told me that she thought Natalie was a better match for me. I was still intrigued by Natalie, despite of her emotional issues, or maybe even because of them, but I also wasn't sure, really, that there was anyone that I knew who was better for me than Dana. I liked being with her, even when we weren't in bed, although we hadn't really spent too much time just getting to know each other. It was an emotional and sexual bond, without a full friendship. There was the beginning of that, but it wasn't fully formed.

And I was, to be fair, an 18 year old who had, until a few weeks before, been completely afraid of the opposite sex, and within a matter of weeks had multiple sex partners, group sex, violent sex, sex with sisters and a whirlwind relationship with my longtime best friend, all of whom raved about my prowess, and, on the other hand, two pretty bad dates when I had asked out girls on my own.

I decided to try to talk this out with Dana, someplace private, but not someplace where we would just easily fall into bed. I called her and asked her to meet me in the park, and she agreed. My goal was to either get her to ask me for an exclusive relationship, or to make her say that I should date Natalie. I was prepared to accept her offer, if she made it, and see if we could fill in the emotional holes in our relationship, rather than just the physical ones. She agreed to meet me. To try to throw her off her well practiced game, I decided that this time, I would be late.

When I arrived at the park, Dana was sitting on the bench where we had agreed to meet. From a distance, I could see how beautiful she really was, and I could see that she was looking at me and at her watch. As I got closer, it looked to me like she was wearing the same loose fitting clothing that she wore at our first tutoring session that seemed so long ago. If she had planned that, I was amazed; otherwise it was a pretty incredible coincidence.

When she saw me, she smiled and stood up as I approached. She hugged me and gave me a light kiss on the lips, and I was, as usual, overcome by her beauty. Again, if she was planning this, she was hitting so many right notes, without being obvious. I sat down next to her, and we turned to face each other.

I started talking right away, "Dana, I wanted to talk to you, because I am confused. On the one hand, you act like you want to be my girlfriend, exclusively, but on the other hand, you push me away. You tell me about other girls, you agree with Ariel to share my time over the weekend. You even seemed to agree with me over the weekend that we should continue as friends with benefits, but other times, I sense that you don't want that, at all."

She looked at me, and I could see some confusion flash across her perfect features. "What do you want?" she asked.

But I was not going to fall into that trap. "What I want is for you to be straight with me. For example, you once told me that you thought that Natalie was a better fit for me than you, and you know how my first date with her went. Do you still think that, because if you do, I think I should ask her out again."

Dana's face clouded a bit, and she paused, and thought. "I guess that if you want to go out with Natalie, then you should," she said, although I didn't really believe that she meant it. But she recovered her composure, and smiled. She said, "I hope you understand that I also have guys I want to date, and if your attempts to sleep with Natalie fail, I might not be there when you want me."

I knew that was a risk, but if I didn't take some control of this relationship, she would always be able to play games with me. I was also getting enough confidence in the fact that if Natalie wasn't interested and Dana was otherwise occupied, that I would find someone else. Maybe not right away, but soon enough.

"I understand, and I want us to stay friends," I said.

"With benefits," she said, flashing me the look that I'm sure she knew made me crazy.

We kissed a little on the bench—there were families with kids around, and went our separate ways.

For a couple of weeks, I actively pursued Natalie. She was really an amazing girl—smart, interesting and beautiful. We connected on all levels, other than physically. We came close to having sex once, but she pulled away again, and I realized that it was never going to happen for us, and we parted friends. She visited me at college once after she was accepted to my school, and stayed with a female friend of mine. But Natalie chose instead to go to a women's college where she realized that she preferred girls. The last I heard, she and her wife, a sculptor, live in Oregon, where Natalie performs in a local orchestra and gives music lessons. They adopted a little boy.

When my attempts to sleep with Natalie failed, I called Dana right away. We had progressed from barely knowing each other, to sex partners, without any middle ground, although it was clear that we had begun to become friends. I knew that we felt a connection beyond the physical, and decided I wanted to see if we could actually be real friends, and not just lovers. So, Dana was surprised when I called and told her that Natalie and I hadn't worked out (which, of course, she already knew) and didn't just ask her to come over for sex, but instead asked her out on our first date.

We had a lovely dinner, and had one of the best discussions we ever had, about what we wanted in the future, in college and after. I dropped her off at her house with a kiss goodnight and refused her invitation to come into her house. The next day, I asked her to the movies, and afterwards, we sat in my car in front of her house, talked some more, and made out, before she went home, alone. Knowing her appetites, I could sense her frustration (and was pretty frustrated myself), although I think she appreciated and understood what I was doing (and secretly, I liked the idea that I was forcing her to wait and make her anticipate being with me). I sent Dana flowers the next day, with a note saying, "I have really enjoyed getting to know you the last few days and am looking forward to our third date."

Two nights later, I invited her to my house and cooked her chicken stir fry, and we talked more about how we felt about each other and made out on the couch before going to my room and having amazing, acrobatic yet tender sex.

For the first time, I realized that the girl I was having sex with had become my best friend, and not just a fantasy girl, which made it that much better. Afterwards, Dana told me felt the same way about me, and we spent the rest of the summer, before we had to go to college, together almost every waking minute when Dana wasn't working (and many sleeping minutes), exclusively.

We went to movies, museums, the mall, hung out, talked, listened to music, joked, cooked, watched TV, swam, worked out, ran, cuddled, rubbed each others' feet and backs, kissed and made love. We got to the point where we regularly started staying over at each other's houses and sometimes I would wake up at Dana's and find my father there, or wake up at my house and see Linda. We never again had a threesome with Ariel (although I wouldn't have minded, but I figured that Dana and my exclusive relationship precluded that). Sarah started teasing me and Dad about the magic powers the Angelo women seemed to have over us, but we kept trying, unsuccessfully, to convince her that it was us with the magic over them.

It was a great month, but we agreed that once college started, we would go back to our prior "friends with benefits" arrangement, and see what happened. We knew that we both were people who needed regular sex and felt that it was wrong to force ourselves into a long distance exclusive relationship. We were confident that our friendship would continue, and if ultimately turned into more, then we wouldn't resist, but we weren't going to force the issue.

Gina and I remained friends through college, and after. She never warmed up to Dana. Gina always said what was on her mind, and she never again allowed herself to become marginalized. She was a campus activist, became a lawyer, and head of a not for profit woman's rights advocacy group. She stopped hiding her beauty and went through a series of boyfriends, none of whom measured up to her high standards, until she was 40, when she met a man who satisfied all of her intellectual and physical needs. I see her every once in a while, and I think she is happy doing good works.

Dad and Linda ended up seeing each other regularly for about a year, but decided that the friends with benefits thing made more sense for them (I guess the apples didn't fall far from the trees). Linda met another guy about a year later, and they later got married, and moved into his larger house, which had enough room for Ariel and Dana. Dad never remarried, but did date more regularly over the next few years, and began to go on trips for older singles, often coming back with pictures showing him with his arm around attractive women his age. He slowed down at work, and let himself enjoy his women, his children and grandchildren. Sarah, Ariel, Dana and I all agreed that our plan to set our parents up led to their breaking out of their ruts. To this day, Sarah and Dana can't believe that it was me, and not they, who thought of it.

Sarah graduated from college with a degree in sociology. She and Steve stayed together through the end of college and moved to Washington, D.C., where Steve went to grad school and then to work, first on Capitol Hill and then as a lobbyist, becoming quite successful. Sarah started to work at a well-connected party planning company, which fit her social talents. Right after she and Steve got married, she started her own party planning firm, and she allowed me to invest some of the money that I had received from our family trust in the company. Her beauty, which only seemed to increase as she got older, her talent for the job, her brilliance in knowing who should meet who and her ability to keep abreast of the important gossip resulted in the company growing and becoming hugely successful.

Sarah became a top Washington hostess in her own right, throwing lavish parties that included politicians from all sides and other interesting and important people, which I was occasionally able to attend. They have two very tall, smart and beautiful daughters, who my kids idolize. After the company went public, I made enough money, when added to the rest of my share of the family money, to support myself very comfortably and still do what I loved, being a physics professor at a small, well regarded university.

After the second weekend at the lake house, I did go to the gym with Ariel, and we worked out a fitness routine for me that I was able to maintain for years, without killing myself. Ariel graduated from college with a degree in exercise science and worked as a personal trainer afterward. She visited me a couple of times during college for "old times' sake", and we had fun and vigorous sex. I never said anything to Dana about it, and I have no idea if Ariel ever did. Over the years, I often contacted her for her insights into relationships. Ariel later moved to Hawaii and opened a successful personal training business, where my wife and I have visited her, and she made me work my ass off. Ariel and her husband, also a trainer, have 2 beautiful daughters, and she worked herself back into amazing shape after the pregnancies.

Beth and I never slept together again. After college, she moved to California and took an entry level job at a movie studio and slowly advanced in the business. Apparently because she believed that her huge tits prevented people from taking her seriously, she went against the Hollywood tide and had breast reduction surgery. For those of us who had experienced them in all of their glory, this was sad, but two years later, she got a big promotion, so maybe it was the right call. She married a handsome character actor, who mostly does commercials and the occasional guest spot on crime procedurals, and they live in a beautiful house outside of Los Angeles. They don't have any kids. I saw her once on TV when one of her movies won an Oscar.

I never saw or spoke to Fiona again. That was no big deal, but asking her out when I did was a big step for me, so I hope she is happy.

After she graduated from college, Cara moved to New York, and her good looks and lack of inhibition quickly got her immersed in the active New York nightlife scene. I never knew how she supported herself initially, but I would occasionally see pictures of her with up and coming bands or young actors. Cara visited me a few times in college, and for a few years after, and those nights were, to say the least, quite memorable. She went into rehab a couple of times, the second time successfully.

Her blog about her wild escapades in the city became extremely popular and was turned into a book and then a movie, which Beth helped develop. There is an early scene in the movie that is based on our weekend at the lake house, except they changed the facts so that Cara was the only one who initiated "me" and the well known actor who played "me" was about 10 times better looking than I ever was. But it was cool, anyway. And Cara told me that his cock was smaller than mine and he was secretly gay.

She made enough money from the book and movie to support herself well and to keep blogging. A cable network did a pretty explicit series based on some of her later blogs, which brought her additional money. As the years went on, we rarely saw each other, but one year before I met my wife, the American Physical Society had its convention in New York, and I suspect that I was the only attendee who had to pay the hotel to repair a broken bed, torn sheets and a smashed chair. I'm not proud, but those are the facts.

Fred and Emily stayed together into their sophomore year in college, but the long distance relationship couldn't survive and they broke up. Emily became a commercial banker in Houston, and I never saw her again. I'm pretty sure that Fred never found out that I was Emily's first, or that Dana and I set them up so that Fred wouldn't graduate high school as a virgin. Or if he did, he never mentioned it to me. Fred and I remained close for years. He also got into academia, as an historian, and was a professor before moving into administration. He was actually a dean for a year at the same college where I work, and during that time, his wife, an English scholar, and mine became friendly and our kids played together. He moved on to a bigger school the next year, though, and worked his way up until he became president of a small liberal arts college in Iowa. We try to get together when we can, and still are in electronic communication on a regular basis.

Using the lessons I had learned at the lake house, and during the rest of that summer, I had a fun and active social life in college, while also doing well in my studies. During those times when I was between girlfriends, Dana and I often got together to take advantage of the benefits of our friendship. In fact, I think the fact that other girls on campus saw me with Dana may have convinced them that there must be something about me that made me worth dating. If I haven't made it clear enough, she was that good looking.

Dana went off to college a week before I did, for cheerleading practice, and Sarah took her under her wing. Dana joined Sarah's sorority, ultimately became the president and was a three year varsity cheerleader. I visited her there a few times, both when she had a boyfriend, which was a little fun, and when she didn't, which was more fun. I knew that she took her studies pretty seriously, yet pictures of her in her cheerleading uniform, and other sexy outfits, occasionally appeared on the Internet. She gained a small amount of notoriety, so she quit cheerleading and did a little swimsuit modeling and some public appearances at trade shows to pay for school and her expenses and she was even able to put away some money. (Despite her overall lack of modesty, Dana made what turned out to be a smart decision to never appear nude, which probably would have been embarrassing in her future business. I admit that I occasionally accessed my secret stash of pictures, although at some point, I must have forgotten to copy them to a new computer, because they were lost. Luckily for me, they never surfaced anywhere.)