Edited By Barney R. Further messed with by me. All errors are mine.

I was unlucky at love and relationships.

My name Jack Kensington, I’m now 38, and when this story starts I was 18 and a senior in high school. I was not a jock, but I ran cross country and played baseball on our teams. I was not good enough to carry my skills to the college level, so I never participated in organized sports again.

My senior year of high school started out great, I had enough credits to graduate at the end of the first semester, and I had already enrolled in college at Grand Valley State University. I planned to finish the year, but an incident with my steady girlfriend changed that plan. I had received a full academic scholarship, and I knew my athletic skills were not up to the next level.

Sheryl Stevens was my current girlfriend and we had been dating exclusively for almost two years. She was the proverbial ‘Girl next door’. Her family and mine went to the same church, and their house backed up to ours. We spent so much time visiting each other that our dads had installed a gate in the back fence so we didn’t have to walk around the block. We had been friends for nearly eight years, and group dating since seventh grade, but only when I turned 16 and she turned 15 did we become girlfriend and boyfriend and go on one-on-one dates.

I was on my way home Wednesday evening from my senior year cross country practice for the last meet, when I got a call on my cell. I pulled over to the side of the road and answered. It was my girlfriend, soon to be ex, who knew that I would not put up with dating others when we had agreed to be exclusive.

“Hi Sheryl, what do you want. I’m trying to drive and talk at the same time. Can’t this wait until I get home?” I was trying to be nice, but I was angry with her actions.

“Sorry Jack, this can’t wait. I want to end our exclusivity. I think we need to explore other opportunities.” Sheryl was talking like she was springing a surprise on me. She was trying real hard to sound like she was sorry to have to say it.

“OK, tell Robert Person he can have you all to himself, I understand he is bragging all over school how he fucked you Friday night. You remember Friday night, the night when you weren’t feeling well, and had some important school work to catch up on so you cancelled a dinner that we planned for two weeks. Don’t bother denying it, How else did he know about the mole on your pubic bone, and that the carpet doesn’t match the drapes. You will find that you have the brand new status of slut at school. At least you will when he gets done running his mouth. Is it true you took him around the world Friday like he is saying? You always denied me your ass when I wanted to try anal. I hope it was worth it. Your new lover took great pains to tell me all about his date with you.”

“Oh no,” She wailed; “that asshole, I’m sorry Jack, he seemed so nice, and I was intrigued. I never gave him a blow job or anal, and he is a two pump chump. He never even got it in when he came all over me. I’m sorry you had to find out like this but I was bored, and it sounded like you would never know. I’m sorry.”

Then the call went dead.

Well, I was going to break up with her when I discovered she had lied to me, but now that she decided to make a change in our status, I no longer would cover for her.

I arrived home and said hi to the ‘rents’. Then I asked my dad if I could use some of his scrap lumber for a project I needed to finish.

His said; “Of course, what do you need to do?”

I knew it would get me in trouble, but I blurted it out anyway. “I need to disable the gate on the back fence so the slut behind us doesn’t come through it.” Then I suddenly started crying. I couldn’t stop, and I had to sit down.

Before the night was over, I told them the whole story. It turned out I wasn’t in trouble. The next Saturday my dad and I removed the gate and rebuilt the fence back to a solid wall.

We were about half way through the job when Mrs. Stevens came out and asked why we removed the gate. Before I could answer, she looked at me and then asked. “Why did you make Sheila cry? She said you broke up with her.”

I looked at dad and he just nodded. “Your daughter decided to lie to me about why she broke our date for last Friday night. She told me she wasn’t feeling well, and had some important homework to finish. I guess getting fucked by Robert Person was homework and made her feel better. I’m sorry for my language, but that is how Robert told it to me. Also, please understand, that I did not break up with her, she cheated on me so once she went out with someone else without telling me, in fact lying to me, and breaking a date to cheat on me, I would say she broke up with me.

I don’t know about your family’s teaching, but my parents told me when I was first dating that dating required a level of honesty, and more than three dates with the same person required a level of exclusivity. Your daughter waited until after her date to tell me we were no longer exclusive. Therefore we no longer need this gate.”

Mrs. Stevens was taken aback by my anger, but I no longer cared. She looked very sad when she turned and walked back to her house.

Sheryl came out as we were getting the last board up. I had the screwdriver in my hand ready to screw the board tight when she arrived.

“Jack, just because we are no longer exclusive doesn’t mean we can’t be friends, or even date. Why are you acting like this? You even made my mother cry.”

I said, with more than a little heat; “I am acting like this because I need to trust my friends, not have them lie to me. As to dating, you need to go to the health department or your doctor and show me that you didn’t get a social disease from Robert. Understand, Friday night destroyed everything we had the last two years.”

I continued; after I took a deep breath, “I will not date a liar and a cheat. We were exclusive until last Friday, and if you hadn’t lied to me we probably would still be able to date. You decided to make a change to our relationship because, as you told me ‘I was bored’, therefore I must be a lousy date. You can now date all the non-boring but big mouthed skirt chasers in school.

I never once told anyone about any intimate details of our dating, so you cheated on me with the one person who you should have known would tell the entire school what a lying slut you were to ‘fuck on the first date’. Wait, it was your first time with him wasn’t it?”

She didn’t answer, just watched from her yard as I screwed the last board in the fence.

I decided then that I need to just kick back and finish the rest of the semester and move on. There were only about eight weeks left.

The next Monday morning I stopped in the school office and informed my guidance consular that I was graduating at the end of the first semester. He looked at my records and just nodded and told me he would set it up to get my diploma when the semester ended.

Word got around that Sheryl had put out on the first date, and all of the pussy hounds started moving in. I was still angry, but I didn’t think that she deserved all of the cockroaches’ attention, so I walked over to her and put my arm around her and escorted her to class. I whispered as we got there, “I will not date you, but you do not need the rep, so I will be your beard until you tell me not to. We are done, but I think I want to act like a friend.”

Then I added, “I am not going to replace the gate, but you can call me if you have any trouble. I will graduate in January, so you’re covered until then.

Well, she must have had a guilty conscious because the story of the two pump chump got around, and I never had to move in again. Sheryl never spoke to me again. Her family moved before I graduated from college.

I did find a nice lady to date in college. Her name was Susanne Harper. We had several classes together during our freshman year. She approached me to help form a study group for our class in world history.

We connected and I asked for a date, she agreed. I took her to a local amateur theatre group play. At the dinner before the play we each talked about our goals, dreams and most important views on almost everything but religion and politics. She heard, from me, what Sheryl had done to me and said that the same thing had happened to her except, he showed up at her workplace with his date. She felt he did it deliberately.

After that we dated occasionally and near the end of freshman year, she wanted exclusivity. I agreed. We took some summer classes to get a little ahead. When we finished up our sophomore year and agreed to take a break because we would be 250 miles apart.