I missed my first autumn at college. I had been going through a lot of issues during my high school years, just teenage stuff, but it caused my grades to be rather low and caused me to be a little unadjusted in general. So my parents let me stay on at their summer vacation home through that autumn to try and get a perspective, try and bring my grades up, and just try not to embarrass them anymore than I already had.
My family had some money. We weren’t really rich, but dad made well over six figures and we were definitely an upper middle class family. When I was a teenager I guess I always took this for granted, but it did give me certain advantages, and as I look back now I am grateful for them.
All that summer after graduating from high school I had been staying at our home in Colorado. This was at a nice summer resort area, and the scenery was pretty and there was a lot to do. Most of my friends had houses in the area, too. They dropped in for a few weeks of the summer and this gave me a chance to hang out with them. So the summer passed quickly, but as soon as September started, my entire crowd headed in different directions to go to the college of their choice, or in some instances the only college that would accept them. This left me alone and feeling a depression I had never experienced before in my eighteen years of living.
I started thinking that I was really a looser and became certain that I had no future and would never go any place in my life. I looked back on all the dumb things I had done in high school and hated myself for every one of them. Also, boredom set in as the Colorado weather got colder and the out door parks began closing up for the season.
My parents had spent a few weeks during the summer up at the house with me, and my older brother and sister had been in and out a couple of times with their crowd. After Labor Day everyone abandoned the house and left me, as it’s single occupant. I liked being the master of the place for about two days, and beyond that felt as if I was going to turn into Norman Bates.
I mentioned that my grades in school had fallen, as my teenage trouble had gotten worse. Well, I was really a pretty smart kid, but just unmotivated and mixed up. My family always was supportive of me, even if they were slightly embarrassed of me, and they knew I still had it in me to go to college and get good grades and have the life that everyone expected. The teen shrink they had sent me to back in the city hadn’t done me any good and I thought the guy was an idiot. So my mom and dad decided to pay for me to have a private tutor to help me bring up my test scores, while they hoped the mountain air would improve my mixed up attitude.
Dad got one of his friends at the local junior college to recommend someone who was teaching at the college level, was good with one on one instruction, and who could handle or at least ignore a slightly weird would-be college kid. Dad succeeded, as he almost always did in everything, and found the perfect choice to be my summer tutor. Her name was Ann. She was an assistant professor at the junior college in the English department, but had wide knowledge covering many subjects.
Ann quickly became a friend to me. She was cool and we found lots of topics of conversation as the summer wore on into fall. She even made friends with my friends, as they would come over to visit me through out the summer. Also, I found myself learning from her. I liked her teaching style; it was exactly what I needed. Actually, after she found out I had better than average intelligence she didn’t keep it simple anymore but challenged me with harder subjects.
Ann was twenty-four years old, and she had a natural girl quality about her that made her always seem free. She was at ease with everybody, even my dad when he interviewed her, and that isn’t easy to do. She always dressed casually in jeans and a T-shirt, and never wore any make-up; not that she needed any make-up with her clear complexion and naturally tanned skin.
After the autumn rolled around and everyone left me to my own devises at the summer home Ann was the only constant visitor I had. She came over on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and would stay for about two hours during each visit. I had known her for three months, and she was more than just my teacher. She was a friend definitely, but that isn’t exactly how I would describe my feelings for her either.
One of the issues I was dealing with at that time in my life was all of my feelings about girls. I loved them, and everything about them made me horny. I was considered rather handsome in a schoolboy sort of way. I was tall at just over six feet, and thin, perhaps just a little too thin. I wore glasses most of the time, and my hair was unfashionably long. However, my big drawback with the opposite sex was probably the fact that though eighteen, and fast approaching nineteen, I looked about ten-years-old. I was one of those young men that look much younger than they really are – much younger.
I had been out with girls a couple of times in my past, but had never had a serious date. The truth was that I had graduated from high school with out ever having gotten to first base with a girl. Looking back on it all now I think this was probably one of the main reasons why I felt so weird all the time. I was ashamed about it, and never wanted my group of friends to find out the terrible truth.
The last weekend of September of that year everything was about to change for me. It had just started to get cold at that altitude, and clouds covered the sky all day long. There was crispness to the fall air that felt good and exhilarating. My older brother had taught me how to build up a fire in the fireplace of the family room, and I had built up a big one that I planned to keep going all weekend.
I had decided this would be my last weekend up at the house and had called mom and dad with my intentions to return home and contact my perspective college on the West Coast and beg for a winter semester entrance. As in most things they had been supportive of me and told me to come on. I think they could detect a growing maturity in my voice and hoped that I was returning to them to take up my adult life once and for good.
Ann came by at six that Friday evening for my last tutoring session. I had already told her of my plans to leave and she had voiced her support at the good idea. To celebrate she brought over a bottle of expensive wine and we set in front of the fire sipping and talking. Like I mentioned our relationship was more than just student and tutor. I still was not exactly for sure what our relationship was all about, but what ever it was I knew that I liked it just fine.
“This is my boyfriends favorite wine,” she told me. We were both on the big rug on the floor before the fire, cross-legged and facing each other, an appropriate distance of about two feet separating us.
“So have you set the big day with your boy friend yet?” I asked.
“No,” she laughed, a little self-conscious as she massaged her bare foot toes next to the warmth of the crackling flames. “I’m moving in with him after Christmas. I want to live with him for a year before we get married. But I think it’ll work out ok. He’s a pretty nice guy most of the time.”
“You’re lucky to live out here. It’s really a great place.”
“Yeah. I just hope the university will have my job open again next semester.”
We sipped wine, and listened to the fire jump behind the screen for another couple of minutes, with out saying anything to each other. We had evolved into a relationship where we didn’t have to talk in order to force comfort by talking. Silence between us felt ok, too.
We didn’t plan anything that happened that night. We weren’t drunk, and we didn’t talk about it before, during, and strangely enough never afterward. Instead, we both seemed to know what was coming, or sense it on some level just below the conscious.
Ann had left me alone by the fireplace, and soon I heard the water running through the Jacuzzi. I got up and padded, barefoot, through the cold floors of the big house. The Jacuzzi was in a rec room in the finished basement. I made it slowly down the stairs and came over to Ann who was getting the hot tub ready for use. I set down next to her on the edge and looked at her. Our eyes met for a brief minute, and I knew then what was going to happen, and my heart began beating fast.
“Hey,” was all she said to me.