The Lake House Lessons 10

It was a great day for me, but I'm sure that it was similar to every other graduation in the country. The orchestra played, there were speeches and the graduating class filed slowly across the stage to get diplomas.

Gina's graduation speech was still pretty angry and political, but she always was pretty hardcore. I had toned mine back significantly. I talked about how high school had two major parts—what you learned in class, and what you learned outside of class. I noted that being valedictorian meant that I was good at the academic side, but that I was lousy at the social side, which meant that I was left out of the social mainstream. I did cast some blame on the people who enforced the rigid caste system that we had, but ended by saying that I learned a lot over the past few weeks. I admitted that one thing I learned was that I had to bear some of the responsibility for my social ostracism, but that if all of us challenged our assumptions about each other, and opened our minds to each other's different talents, we would all be better and happier.

I said that this new attitude made it possible for me to enjoy the end of school, to become very close with some of my prior antagonists (which led to some hooting from some of the guys, who understood that I was referring to Dana), and to finally see that I had missed something special that had been hiding in plain sight in front of my eyes (which led to some "aaahing" from some of the girls, and more hooting from the guys because the gossip about how I had started seeing Gina, and stopped hooking up with Dana had quickly made the rounds). The speech went over well, and I'm guessing that there haven't been many valedictory speeches at the school that worked in subtle references to girls that the valedictorian had fucked, but who knows.

After the thing was over, everybody was milling around the school lobby, congratulating each other. I noticed that Dad and Linda (as I had begun to call Mrs. Angelo) were together, and I went to them, and received congratulations from them, and from Ariel, who snuck in a little friendly grab of my ass when she hugged me. Dana came by, and we hugged and congratulated each other.

I saw Gina and her family, but they were on the other side of the room, and were busy with her apparently very large extended family. This went on for a while, and Dad and Sarah, and my relatives all left. I worked my way over to Gina, gave her a small kiss and spoke briefly with her parents, who I had known for years, and met a large number of aunts, uncles, cousins, and one grandmother.

"I need to go to dinner," I said.

"See you later," she responded, kissed me and turned back to her family.

When I got home, I was surprised to see Linda, Ariel and Dana at the house along with my family. I found Sarah and asked her why they were there.

"Dad invited them. They don't have any other family here, so he invited them."

"You must have known in advance, to order food," I hissed.

"Of course, but I didn't want to say anything, to make sure you weren't upset before the ceremony. I didn't want to make you worry."

"I'm O.K., I guess, and thanks, but I better tell Gina."

"Good idea," she said.

I called Gina and explained, and she seemed cool with it. I had worried for nothing. Dinner was great, and we had wonderful conversations. I noticed that Brooke and Dana were talking like old friends. At one point, Aunt Jennifer cornered me, and asked whether I was seeing anybody.

I told her about Gina, and she said, "We worried about you, you always seemed so shy, so I'm glad that you found someone."

By the time that Gina texted me that she was outside, I had had a couple of beers and was feeling great. I asked her to come in, and introduced her to everyone. She looked very pretty, in a tight dress that hugged her previously hidden curves.

Dana, sounding sincere, told her that she looked great and asked for a ride to the party, and Gina agreed easily. Maybe, I thought, they will be able to get along.

I got into the passenger seat and Dana got into the back. It was a bit awkward, but Dana kept the conversation going as we drove, talking about the graduation, and filling us in on gossip, mostly about people we really didn't care about. We approached Dennis' house, which was in the fanciest part of town, and pulled as close as we could.

The house was enormous. Our house was pretty big, but this made it look like a shack. The party was already raging, and there were kids packing the lawn. Dana regally strode through the crowd, clearly reveling in what was likely the last party of her high school reign. Soon, she would be off to college, and some other pretty, tough girl would slide into her position of power. We followed in her wake, my arm around Gina's shoulders.

A few half drunken guys yelled, "Great speech" to me and high fived me as we walked by. We got to the house and found beers.

"Let's see if Fred and Emily are here," I said.

As we walked through the house, the post-graduation celebrating was getting serious. People were drinking, eating pieces of 6 foot hero, and making out. We walked to the back and saw a pool at least twice the size of ours, with a waterslide and a pool house. The pool was filled with shirtless guys, some girls who were totally dressed, their soaked tops plastered to their bodies, and even a few girls in their bras and panties. Music was blasting and everyone seemed to have a cup or beer bottle in their hand and was having fun. I saw Fred and Emily sitting in a lounge chair, and went to say hi. They were sharing the chair, and making out. There was an empty chair next to them, and Gina and I sat down together. I leaned in to kiss her soft lips, and before you knew it, we were making out on the chair. After a while, though, Gina wanted to stop and look for a more private spot, which I wholly agreed with.

The place was crowded, but there was a gentle grassy incline that led to a wall. There were couples all over the grass, and we found a spot and lay down, with my arm around Gina. It was a comfortable, clear night, and we looked at the stars. Being who we were, we began to point out constellations and stars to each other. It was very relaxing lying there with Gina, and we kissed a little.

"Let's not do too much now," she suggested. "I'm not comfortable with all of these people around. Having sex outside is on the list, but not like that," she said, gesturing down the hill a way, where a couple appeared to be screwing, oblivious to the people watching them.

"That's fine," I said, "we have nothing but time starting tomorrow."

We quietly lay there, listening to the pounding of the music and the indistinct sound of people talking. After a while, I decided I wanted a beer, and we walked back into the house. In the interim, the party had gotten wilder as the guests got drunker. There had been a small fight, and I saw one girl, her shirt torn exposing her bra, crying, her mascara running down her face as her friends tried to comfort her. I also saw Dana, sitting on the couch, with a guy I recognized as having graduated from North the year before. He had his arm around her and she was nestled into his armpit, drinking a beer. I felt almost nothing.

I turned to Gina and said, "Let's get out of here."

"Why?" she asked, "You were the one who wanted to go to the big blowout parties."

"I guess I wanted to be invited, but really, I don't know most of these people. I'd rather just spend the time with you."

I texted Sarah, "what's going on at the house?"

She responded, "Nothing. Everyone is gone, Dad is in bed (alone) and Steve and I are about to go to bed ourselves."

"Thanks," I responded. I turned to Gina and said, "My house is quiet now. Want to go back there and take a swim, we could cross that item we just discussed off of your list?"

"The pool, hmm," she said, thinking. "I think that might cross two items off the list."

We drove back to my house and quietly went to the pool. It was dark, except for the moonlight and I kept the lights off for privacy. We stripped naked and silently entered the water. I could see Gina's silhouette and its compact curves began to arouse me. After swimming around in the dark, we met and embraced, kissing and holding each other, feeling the warmth of our bodies. I was standing and the water was up to my chest. I was holding Gina above the water and she wrapped her legs around me, pressing her bare crotch against my stiffening cock. She reached down and guided me inside her warm pussy. We stood there not moving until Gina pulled her hips back and began to quietly move back and forth on my cock. I was able to press back, and we were swaying together, just our hips moving.

Gina began to breathe harder, and pressed her mouth against my shoulder to muffle her sounds, and I buried my mouth in her hair to do the same. We moved faster and faster, trying to keep quiet, but beginning to cause some splashes until I came insider her. She bit my shoulder and sighed quietly, but strongly, as she reached her own climax. We stayed in that position as my cock slid out of her and I rocked her gently.

Gina let go of my neck and leaned back and I slowly released her into the water. I could make out the outline of her face, breasts and abdomen in the silver moonlight until she released her legs and backstroked away. I chased her, as silently as I could, until I caught her and we kissed again.

"It's getting late," she said, "I should go home."

We left the pool into the chilly air. I found some towels and we dried off and put our clothing back on. We kissed goodnight and Gina went home.

A month or so later

Gina and I spent much of the next month or so exploring each other, both sexually and intellectually. We crossed off most of the things on Gina's list, and added a few as we went along, before crossing them off. I had had a crash course in sex, but it had all been "no strings attached," until I started dating Gina. I hadn't had a relationship and all of that entailed, and it turned out to be harder than I had expected. After the first couple of weeks, we started to find ourselves bickering.

I became annoyed with Gina's sometimes excessively logical attitude toward almost everything, including our sexual activities, which, while interesting and adventurous, sometimes felt too thought out. I probably annoyed her just because I didn't always agree with her. Before we were a couple, that tension and back and forth were part of what made our relationship fun, but afterwards, it often led to hard feelings and recriminations. Plus, I knew that she was constantly jealous of me, without any basis at all, because of her insecurities.

It all came to a head when we decided to go to the movies, to see a French romance. Gina looked great, and all was going well when we got to the theatre. Gina waited on the short line while I got us popcorn. It wasn't crowded, so I walked up to the counter. The girl serving me was cute, although she was wearing a bit more makeup than I found attractive. Her uniform was overly tight against her substantial chest, and it was unbuttoned far enough to show more than a hint of cleavage. Her name tag said: "Missy". I ordered a large popcorn and two bottles of water.

Missy looked at me and asked, "Is your name Jack?"

I said, "Yes. And you are Missy, right?"

She laughed, pointed at the name tag above her left breast, and said, "Very funny." She continued, "You just graduated from North, right? I'm going to be a junior next year."

"Great," I said, "good luck."

She smiled at me again, and tossed her light brown hair. I thought I recognized her as one of the slutty looking underclassmen I sometimes saw smoking cigarettes in the woods behind the school.

"Here's your popcorn and water," she said, handing them to me, with some napkins, then said, "and if you would like to pop my corn, give me a call."

Even after all that I had heard and done in the past few weeks, I was flustered at her directness to essentially a stranger, and just stared at her.

"That will be $9.50," she said, and as I reached for my wallet, she continued, running her tongue over her bright red lips. "Of course, I prefer corn on the cob. I like to start eating at one end and very slowly work my way to the other end, then back and forth until I am left with an empty cob and butter smeared all over my face, you know?"

"No, I don't," I said, "and I have a girlfriend."

"I don't care," she said, and handed me my change. I walked away.

When I got back to Gina, she was seething. "I saw you flirting with that girl," she said, in a low harsh voice.

"No, I wasn't," I responded, firmly.

"Don't lie to me," she demanded, and I responded, "I'm not. She came on to me in kind of a bizarre way, and I completely shot her down. I told her I had a girlfriend and wasn't interested."

"Then why did she write her phone number on this fucking napkin?" Gina said, loudly, pointing to a napkin that clearly had "Missy" and her phone number written on it.

"I didn't even notice that," I said, pointing out, "Would I be so stupid to leave it out in the open for you to see if I knew it was there?"

Gina said, in a very hard tone, "I have seen how a set of big breasts can make your brain melt, so I don't know."

I paused, and thought hard about what I was about to say, but I was so angry at Gina's refusal to trust me that I decided to let fly. "So, this is all really about Dana, isn't it?" I spat out. "I have barely seen her since we started going out, and most of those times were with you. I have done nothing to violate your trust with her or anyone."

She replied, "I can't believe that. I know that you miss fucking that bitch, and I know that she leads you around by the balls."

"This is bullshit," I said, as the other theatre patrons continued to move away from us, "I don't want to be with her, I wanted to be with you. I don't want to be with Missy the popcorn girl, I want to be with you." I was seething, and noticed that half of the popcorn was on the floor around me. Gina was near tears. "Let's get the fuck out of here," I demanded and turned for the exit.

Gina followed me and we silently walked to the car, and I drove her home in silence. We didn't kiss goodnight, and as I drove home, I was furious.

The next day, Gina came over to my house, and we talked. We decided that despite the great sex, our relationship was destroying our friendship, and that we were probably not ready for a relationship with each other now. We agreed to try to stay friends, and see what happened when we went to college. We hugged, and had a last, chaste, kiss before Gina turned and went home.