I still have no idea why I bought into the harebrained scheme. It probably had more to do with my "go long to get along" personality than an actual desire to get into Mia Carter's g-string.
Which is the reason the other three guys were interested in the proposition of joining Mia at her family's palatial cottage up in Muskoka that late August weekend before classes resumed a week later back in Toronto.
Rory practically begged me to go. He'd been my roommate at York U from the beginning and rightly or wrongly credited me for keeping him on the path of virtue and righteousness just well enough to make graduation a realistic proposition for the following spring. I dragged him out of bed after multi-day benders, poured coffee down his throat to sober him up for exams, had ghost-written a couple of critical papers on deadline and even bailed him out of jail that one time (and ensured his overanxious parents never found out).
For his part, Rory dragged me out of the library to attend parties and steered me at women I was too shy to approach and got me laid in spite of myself. Watching him in action, and often concluding that doing the exact opposite would lead to success, helped me develop some kind of game, a skill perilously few young men seem to have today.
Rory was impossibly good looking but just vacuous enough that a wingman such as myself could improve his odds in a crowded field such as the one we encountered that weekend at Mia's cottage. The other two guys -- Lorenzo, an Italian architecture student Mia had met earlier that summer at a party across the lake, and Baz, an Aussie bartender who worked at a York U pub -- shared the more rustic guest cottage with us down by the water.
"I feel like I'm on The Bachelorette," I grumbled as I got out of Rory's old Beemer. Rory giggled and popped the trunk to retrieve our duffles and backpacks.
"C'mon man, it'll be awesome!" he enthused. "You love waterskiing and I hear Mia's boat is sick."
"Yeah, this is all about watersports," I shot back. "Hope you're ready to take a cold shower."
I did not know Mia all that well, but as she came ambling down the hill from the big house, I could well understand Rory's attraction. She was strikingly tall and immediately improved the posture of all eligible males in her orbit. Long, curly blonde hair, Nordic cheek bones, a generous mouth bordered by luscious red lips, superb-toned legs, amazing breasts and a trunk that had men cumming as she was going.
"You made it!" she burbled before giving both of us full-boobage hugs. Rory wiggled his eyebrows as I watched him get his, and getting his was the main project of the weekend. The competition, such as it was, followed in her wake, and I was soon comparing handgrips with both of them -- Lorenzo's a little fey, Baz's with the kind of firmness you'd expect from a bloke who might need to escort a rowdy drunk off premises.
Based on this first encounter, I gave Rory the definite edge. His prospects seemed better than the bartender's, although I learned over the next couple of days that Baz aspired to start his own sailing school back home, while Rory's vocabulary was a little richer than Lorenzo's who had to depend on the shy charm of a man always hunting for the appropriate words, and grateful for any assistance Mia could render him.
Me? Just there for the country air and the pull of a strong boat. And moral support for my roomie.
Within minutes of arriving, I soon learned my talents as a wingman would prove to be invaluable. For once we got into the cottage, we encountered the unexpected seventh member of the party: the poison dwarf.
On our way up the hill, Mia warned us what to expect when we got inside. She gave her wicked stepmother that mean nickname and it became clear what the woman was doing there. She was the designated buzzkill for any antics her stepdaughter might be planning and we later learned this was the fallout from a party Mia staged at the cottage earlier that summer, leading to considerable property damage and complaints from equally well-heeled neighbours.
Mia's dad, a celebrated Bay Street lawyer and big wheel in the Conservative Party, thought a chaperone for any future weekend at the cottage would be the rule and in spite of incessant whining by his only daughter, bad actions came with dreary consequences.
So we met Constance. She, too, had luxuriant long hair, only hers was silver grey and she was a good foot shorter than her sullen stepdaughter. Hence the cruel handle. There were fewer curves too and I guessed she might weigh 95 pounds soaking wet. And after a short introductory chat I initiated, I learned she'd be drenched soon enough as she expressed interest in waterskiing which gave us at least that much in common from the get-go.
It was soon time for dinner which I took as my cue to divert our chaperone to the barbecue pit where I would regale her with cooking tips and techniques for grilling steaks to perfection, a talent I picked up from my dad albeit on a cheap portable tripod grill as opposed to the cottage's huge flaming masonry perhaps better suited to Old Testament burnt offerings.
Constance kept an eye on her randy stepdaughter while we cooked and chatted, smiling wryly as she could see her audience competing for attention. "What are you guys thinking about?" she chuckled. "Look at 'em!"
I checked out the action, and shrugged. "Ah, kids today."
"I have terrible news for all of you," she said as she flipped a thick juicy steak. "Mia is the biggest cocktease I've ever met, and I have seen quite a few in my time. You're all going home blue as this steak." Which was cooked to perfection for Lorenzo.
I caught her eye. "You don't say?"
"Oh I do. And I know what she thinks of me too." She shook my hand. "Meet the poison dwarf."
"You don't seem so poisonous to me," I assured her, although to make sure I placed an order for a very well-done steak.
"It doesn't matter," she said matter-of-factly as she unwrapped the mushrooms. "She crossed the line with that stupid party and she embarrassed the old man. You don't do that. He wanted to exile her to that school in Switzerland and I talked him out of it. Having me peeking over her shoulder is getting off easy."
She figured out pretty quick what I was doing there and could be trusted to keep my nose in a book on the deck and out of her stepdaughter's pussy. So we got on fine and put on a dandy opening dinner. The conversation was a mixed bag. Mia prattled on about her summer exploits, with that annoying tic of leavening the word "like" into every sentence at least two or three times. I caught Constance's eye and saw we shared our distaste for this overused filler word which is the plague of my generation.
In his tortured English Lorenzo told us about his weekend at George Clooney's spread on Lake Como the previous summer while Baz was more lyrical in describing the thrill of sailing through the Coral Sea while racing a storm to the mainland. The best Rory could offer was poorly executed jokes from a Bill Burr Netflix special he'd just seen.
Behind on points in the early going, Rory hoped to get back in the game at the impromptu dance Mia staged by the firepit beside the cottage. The fact that it was humid as hell and there was a ban on open flames in this neck of the woods didn't seem to faze the host. By now Constance had retired to the cottage deck overlooking the lawn, watching us intently while nursing a beer while taking in the increasingly drunk activity below. I stuck to my chair as Lorenzo demonstrated the new moves from the continent while Baz demonstrated tactical intelligence by waiting for slower numbers, enabling more skin contact with the host. Rory fell further behind by aping hip hop moves very poorly, clearly qualifying him for the Australian breakdancing team.
With a full agenda for the following day, we all parted company before midnight, hugs exchanged before the men staggered down the hill to our quarters while Mia repaired to the opulence and solitude of the big house. Before I could join the guys, I waved goodnight to Constance who surprised me by coming down to the firepit.
