The summer I turned 18 was a turning point in my sexual life.
It was August, a month before my birthday, and as hot as it gets in our part of the country. We lived near a large lake, and like many families in our area spent as much of the summer as we could in its cool waters and the shade of the pine forest that surrounded it.
Unlike previous years, we did not rent a cabin at the lake for a week. My mother and father had divorced in the winter just ended, and while the split had been reasonably civil my mother never quite got around to making a reservation.
We weren't without a place to stay, however. My mother's friend Maggie, also a divorcee, owned a nice A-Frame right on the water. It was a great place with its own dock and two spare bedrooms, and my mother and I had a standing invitation from Maggie to stay there whenever we wanted. We took to going up on Friday evening and staying through Sunday afternoon. My mother and Maggie would split the time between swimming and sunning, with occasional breaks for gin and tonic and rehashes of their marriages. I would swim, take our boat out to fish, and sharpen my skills at the barbeque pit with what I caught. Despite the fact that I was not yet of age I was allowed a beer or two in the evening. All in all, a pretty good summer; we probably spent more time at the lake than we would have if we had rented our own house.
My mother and Maggie were both attractive women in their late thirties. My mother favored a one-piece bathing suit, but Maggie liked a two-piece. As the summer and her tan progressed Maggie's suits tended more and more to bikinis. By August she was down to a what appeared to be three small cocktail napkins held together by strings.
At 17 I was just barely not a virgin. My sexual experience consisted of two hand jobs and one really awkward actual copulation, all within the last six months. Like most teenage boys I was in a constant state of low-level prurience with frequent peaks into raging lust. Maggie had rather small breasts, but they were firm, and sometimes I thought I could just make out her nipples through the thin fabric of her top. I would also occasionally catch just a hint of dark pubic hair peeking out of the bottom piece. You can imagine how hard it was to keep from staring openly, and sometimes I had to jump into the lake rather abruptly to hide the tell-tale bulge in my own bathing suit.
My mother worked in a small hardware store, and late each summer they took an inventory to prepare for fall orders. To keep from missing weekend business the store was closed for one week day while the stock was counted and cataloged. In the past this had been done on a Monday, but this year the boss decided to do the job on a Friday. It always took until late night to get the work done, so there was no way that we would be able to get to the lake before Saturday morning. I was sorry to miss even one night at the lake, because as the summer drew to an end and the prospect of another school year loomed ever closer I enjoyed our weekends there more and more. However, I didn't complain; after all, my mother's job was feeding us and I was highly in favor of eating.
My mother must have sensed my disappointment, though, and she and Maggie agreed that when Maggie came into town for her weekly grocery trip that Friday I would ride back up to her cabin with her. My mother would join us on Saturday, and because her boss had given her the Monday off as compensation for messing up her weekend plans we would actually spend more time at the lake than usual.
So around 1:00 that Friday afternoon I met Maggie at the supermarket, helped her load the groceries into the car, and we set out for the lake. On the way up we chatted about the coming school year and my plans for college. Maggie was her usual friendly self, and I felt happy and relaxed. It was actually sort of cool being here without my mother; kind of a grown up, out on my own feeling.
When we arrived at the cabin we took the groceries in, put them away, and then got into our bathing suits. As usual Maggie put on a skimpy two piece, a bright yellow one that went well with her golden tan. We spent the afternoon swimming, and as the day darkened to evening I fired up the barbecue and grilled the steaks that Maggie had bought. We took them inside and ate in the big central room sitting at the big picture window, watching lights as they came on across the lake and the moon rising behind the tall pines.
After dinner and cleanup we went back to the great room. We turned on the TV, but nothing was particularly interesting, and we went back to chatting.
"So tell me, who are you seeing now? Is it still Grace?" Maggie asked.
