Watch With Mother
Who was Mary? No one special. At least not in the romantic sense. She was just one of the group I hung out with. A few lads and girls I'd known for years. We lived in the same area. We had grown up together and mostly attended the same schools. We were mates. That's all. And now we were eighteen, we worked at the same call centre.
We were that year's intake. They recruited every year and no end of our school leavers had passed through the innocuous-looking building on the industrial estate. Most moved on within a year.
We would be no different. It was a convenient start. None of us saw it as long-term. Just easy employment until we found better things. For me, I intended a job in retail. One of the big supermarkets that offered development. Hard work and aptitude coupled with my education could get me to a senior role quickly. Stir manager by the time I was thirty. But that was in my future.
Back to Mary. She was pretty enough. She'd make someone a wonderful girlfriend. It just wasn't a thing in my sights. I suppose it was familiarity. We'd known one another for so long we had become more like brother and sister. Of all our group, she was the one I'd known the longest. Since we were toddlers. Our mothers were friends. Not close, but they chatted.
That Friday was no different to any others. We finished at one and headed to the local pub for our weekly afternoon drink.
"Thank god that's over for another week." Harry groaned.
"So sick of whinging customers."
"My round," Wes called out.
We crowded around one table in the corner, some of us being just a little too lairy.
Mary was squeezed in next to me. I caught a flash of her big eyes and sultry smirk when my hand accidentally brushed over her leg. She didn't care enough to even pull her skirt down. It was only a momentary thing to me I hadn't meant to do. Forgotten in an instant.
"Sorry."
Tom was pissing around with beer mats, building them like cards until Jane blew them down. More shouts and pushing. Yeah. We were still like schoolchildren even as we were on the cusp of adulthood. Probably to the annoyance of the other customers.
Kathy was all over Darryl. That was new. I wondered if he was shagging her. It'd be the first match-up amongst us if they were. None of us had ever seen one another as more than friends. I think we still had that school-time mentality and saw our sexual interests as lying outside our circle. It never went further than a bit of banter. But Kathy and Darryl? It looked like a possibility by the way they kept looking at each other.
"Right. We should get going. It's four o'clock." Someone said after our third drink.
I tipped my glass back and emptied its contents with satisfaction only a cool lager can bring.
"Going my way?" Mary asked.
She looked kinda hot standing there with her big blue eyes staring straight at me. The ruffled skirt was shorter than I realised."
"Unless I've moved and no one told me."
"Then you're still going my way. You just won't get in when you get there."
She laughed at me before grabbing my arm.
"Then I'll have to make up the spare room for you.
Come on. You can protect me from ... rampaging zombies or whatever.
And stop looking at my legs."
Rumbled.
The others made some comment about us leaving together, insinuating we were sneaking off for a quickie. No one really believed we were. It was just banter. I did notice Kathy and Darryl were kind of reticent to join in. More evidence there was something between them they weren't keen to draw attention to. And they left together, heading towards his home. Kathy lived in the opposite direction.
I walked with Mary, chatting shit about tv shows. I went right by her house to get to mine. I'd been inside many times. Especially when we'd been children. Her mum and dad were pleasant. Normal people like my own. Mum didn't work. Dad did something in a local bank. I had no idea what, but it paid well enough for a new BMW every two years. He had a Series 3 currently. I wanted one when I could afford it. Insurance costs made that a dream that remained as far in the future as driving had been when I was six.
I saw a discarded can and my thoughts went elsewhere. I kicked it, sending it sailing up the street with a clatter.
"And he scores."
"Ha. You haven't scored for months."
"How would you know?"
I turned, walking backwards a few paces as I let my eyes drift to her legs again. Nice. And wide hips.
"I can tell. It's female intuition."
"So Mrs Sherlock. What do you reckon to Kathy and Darryl? Are they at it?"
"Oh definitely."
"You think?"
"She stayed at his house Saturday night and they were pretty drunk. So what do you think?"
"Yeah. I reckon they are. Kathy's his type. Big tits."
"Overrated."
I grinned. I guess they were when you were small like Mary. Nothing wrong with that though.
"I'm saying nothing."
"You'd better not. Or I'll tell everyone your balls haven't dropped."
"Fuck off.
Good luck to them, I say.
I'd do her."
"Would you now?"
We turned the corner and her house came into view. It was much like mine. A fairly modern estate detached home. Mine was just a little further on, the other side of the cut-through.
"Are you coming out tomorrow night?" I asked changing the subject.
"A few of us are planning on going to the Moonlight Club. A few drinks. A few girls."
Mary feigned shock.
"Girls? I'm not into girls."
"I think they let boys in as well. Strangely, I don't notice them. But I won't tell if you get off with one."
She shrugged.
"Don't know. Probably. If Jane's going I will. I'll message her later."
"Come along. Jane's invited as well. I'm sure she'll be there. It'll be a laugh."
I stopped at the end of her drive as she hesitated.
"Come in for a cuppa. Mum would love to see you."
I looked up the road. It was just like mine. A mid-eighties estate of red brick houses. My dinner would be on the table soon.
"I should get home," I said sweetly.
"Oh don't be silly. Five minutes won't hurt."
I was tempted. What else would I do this evening? Play on the Xbox? That was becoming boring.
"Alright then."
It'd been a while since I'd seen inside her home. Nothing much had changed. It was as homely as ever. And her mum was still a hottie. I remember her being an early crush. Many a night I had gone to sleep imagining running off with the older woman. She'd always worn tight jeans or skirts with blouses that were never buttoned above the cleavage. I'd spent puberty trying to peer down at her tits whenever I came to the house.
Mrs Washington greeted me like an old friend.
"Hi, Sean.
How's your mother?"
"Good. Thanks."
Yep, she still had the same hot smile that always held a promise of naughtiness to my teenage self. And her cleavage was still on display. Advantage to me. I was a little taller now.
"Go through into the back room. The sun's on it and it's lovely and warm. Do you want a tea? Or coffee?
Or I might be able to find a beer in the back of the fridge?"
I pulled a face, weighing up the options.
"Tempting. But we've just come from the pub. Best I stick with coffee."
"I'll have one as well please." Mary piped up.
She grabbed my hand, pulling me away from my returning fantasies about her mum.
"Come on. Let's go sit in the other room."
I followed her through to what was a second, smaller living room. A sofa, an upright winged-backed chair and a solid-looking wooden coffee table were about all that was in there. Oh, and there was an old Hifi stack in the corner with a rack of CDs on the wall above it, no doubt long since banished from the main room with the advent of streaming.
It wasn't a big room. More what you'd call cosy. Sliding doors dominated the far wall from side to side. Two full panes of glass that the last of the afternoon sun blazed through with its heat intensified.
"I remember when we used to play in here." I reminisced as I looked around.
"Just used to be the sofa and a big rug. Remember how we used to sit there with your big box of Lego?"
"I remember a game of you show me yours and I'll show you mine. You chickened out."
"Ha. I'd forgotten about that. Wanna play now?"
Just a joke, but it was strange how Mary ignored me and changed the subject quickly.
"Mum uses it in the evenings when Dad watches football now. She reads a lot and listens to music."
"It's a nice retreat. Wish we had a room like this. Better than being cooped up in my bedroom. I need a place of my own as soon as I get a proper job."
I looked around again. Places always seem so much smaller when you're an adult. I glanced over her mum's music collection spotting one particular album. Quite old now.
"I had a copy of that," I said pulling it forward just enough to see the cover.
"I took it to school in First Year to prove I had it because ... it was a little explicit, and I shouldn't have had it. Jake Coleridge stole it."
Mary giggled.
"I have a confession to make. It wasn't Jake who stole your album."
It was me."
"You stole it?"
"I was twelve and Dad wouldn't let me have a copy because the lyrics were rude.
That's actually it. Your copy."
"And you let me blame Jake all these years? He's paranoid every time someone mentions that group.
Mary gave a coy sway and tried to look innocent.
"Do you forgive me?
I love you really."
"Nope. Too late. You're a hardened criminal in my mind. Off with your head."
I chose the chair to sit in as Mary's mum brought us coffee.
"Oh, Sean. That's a bit extreme."
