Our cottage weekend began like most other long-weekend vacations; with booking the site well in advance. After my husband and I browsed through pictures on the website, we could easily see why it would be more than necessary in this case. On the inside the cottage was fairly average although it appeared a lot cleaner and fresher than most places we viewed. It consisted of two bedrooms, a bathroom, a comfortable living room and a fully stocked kitchen. You could tell the owners weren't simply looking to make a quick buck and genuinely cared about it.
Mainly, the thing which sold us on the place was the piece of land that the cottage stood on. A spacious timber deck dominated the back yard. From this deck, elegant stone steps led down to a wide lawn with a fire pit off to one side. Already from the lawn, the view over the lake was magnificent. There were just enough trees surrounding the area to give off a sense of privacy despite other cottages nearby. Past the fire pit, another wooden staircase opened into a high pier which accommodated a boat house underneath it.
Leo and I booked the property with two of his close friends who happened to be a couple. Keegan and Samantha had dated for many years and seemed very sweet and down-to-earth. I, however, had only spent time with them on a few occasions. Usually, we met up for birthday parties and other celebrations and this cottage getaway would be the first time we were doing something where it would just be the four of us.
Despite me not knowing them all that well, I could sense the four of us would get along just fine. Or at least get along well enough to survive a long weekend up north in close quarters.
Right away, I liked Keegan and absolutely understood how he and my husband could be friends. While their views and opinions differed, these divergences of theirs complimented each other rather than conflicted. They both also shared a sort of candid sense of humour which could turn childish if they were drinking.
I can't say that I didn't like Samantha because I did. She had hazel eyes, gorgeous light brown hair, a slender figure and an unflusterable type of attitude which made her easy to like. Unlike most women I had been acquainted with, Samantha didn't indulge in catty, passive-aggressive behaviour. My tiny issue with her was that she constantly flirted with my husband who more than flirted back. They were friends for almost ten years so I could see where it stemmed from but I wasn't entirely comfortable with it.
Prior to the weekend and in general, Leo and I discussed letting other people into our bedroom –with specific mention of Keegan and Samantha obviously— and I was wholly for it. Being cute, blonde and green-eyed with the right amount of freckles did have its advantages and definitely let me to have plenty of fun when I was single. In my marriage, I realized that I still had that wild side and was incredibly fortunate to be with someone like Leo who wanted to try new things out as well.
What I did not approve of was Leo and Samantha getting together behind my back or when I was away somewhere. While I loved and trusted Leo and imagined Samantha's flirting to be innocent, I couldn't quite shake the feeling that they were always secretly trying to hook up. That's why what happened that long weekend took me completely by surprise.
0o0o0o0
The four of us spent the day fishing on the lake. If the black flies hadn't been trying to eat us alive, I might have called it enjoyable. Slightly sun-burnt and bug bitten, we returned in our little white and blue boat. We had a delicious late dinner consisting of steak and salad which Samantha gladly helped me to prepare.
"You're slicing that cucumber wrong," she told me at one point. "I used to be a chef, so I should know."
She was teasing me and I indulged her, handing the vegetable over to her. I watched as she skinned and cut it in no remarkably unique way.
"That looks exactly like what I was doing," I said, pointing with the knife at her handiwork.
"To the untrained eye it does. My cucumber slices are better," she said playfully.
I stared at her for a second, gauging her comment. "You're lucky that I know you're joking."
She glanced up and made a disappointed face. "Oh, did I mess up chances of us making out later?"
Needless to say, the whole foursome idea was somewhere, floating in my brain but I hadn't expected Samantha to be so blunt about it. Definitely not about the two of us anyway.
"No," I said sensibly, smiling at her. "I never said that."
"Good," she chimed, smiling back and depositing her cumber slices into the salad bowl.
In the evening, the four of us went on an adventurous walk around the cottage grounds and surrounding forests, looking for additional firewood. During the previous night, our fire quickly consumed the wood we bought. We went for a drive earlier that morning and bought more wood from the local town but we also wanted to collect extra just in case.
Our mistake was deciding to drink before our venture. To be fair, after talking about it, we all agreed that alcohol would make our bug bites more tolerable –somehow— and so we were half in the bag when our search for more wood started. It ended with us not finding much in the forests and instead stealing the wood from a cottage property that certainly would not miss it. That might have been my suggestion, I can't completely be sure.
The fire we started was spectacular. In fact we had to move our benches back due to the heat. We did the camp fire routine; marshmallows, ghost stories and, of course, more drinking. As the night wound down, all of us grew tired and it got to the point in the evening when you either opened up another bottle of wine or went to bed. We opted for the second choice but once again our fire had gobbled up most of our wood. Three games of Paper, Rock, Scissors later, Keegan stood up, cursing loudly at Leo and amicably accusing him of cheating. Nonetheless Keegan and Samantha, as the loosing team, willingly went to 'borrow' more wood.
Seconds after they disappeared into the night, Leo and I looked at each other and grinned like a pair of horny teenagers. Quickly, we made our way down to the lowest dock, the one which was used to accesses the boat house.
"Get in there," he said, laughing and pushing me in through the door.
We began kissing but both of us were rather impatient about the whole thing. When he made me moan, I immediately became self-conscious, straining to hear if Keegan and Sam returned. It was silly considering we were all adults but I wasn't a big exhibitionist either. Nothing but the crackle of the flames floated down from the dirt hill.
Ineffectively, I tried to keep quiet but it seemed like Leo was intent on making me moan as loud as possible. Before long, we were both getting noisy and I could've sworn the boathouse was swaying with us.
Once we finished and dressed, the silence around us felt tremendous. The fire pit shone like a beacon and the worn, grassy path from the boathouse was easily navigated by our dark-adjusted eyes when we finally came back up. Felt like we were in there for a long time, certainly long enough for Sam and Keegan to have returned.
Somehow, I knew that out of the two of them, Samantha would be the one sitting alone by the fire. Spite emerged in me, taking me by surprise since I didn't have a reason to be angry. Not like I didn't enjoy the romp with Leo. But suddenly, I was convinced that she wanted to hear him as much as he wanted her to hear, like it was their secret plan from the beginning.
"Hi Samantha," he said to her. "Where's Keegan?"
Leo was being too casual, sounding like he was hinting proudly at the fact that he just fucked me. He didn't have to be so obvious; I knew she had been listening for a good portion of our activities. I could see it on her fire-traced features and the smugness of her posture. Samantha shifted her shoulders up and down indifferently.
"Up at the cottage," she answered. She was not sure nor did she care about Keegan in this instance which made me feel sad for him and disliked her.
