Bethany had seen enough - She had been going to her son's track and field events ever since he was in junior high school and now that he was winding up his senior year of high school, she guessed she had attended over 100 meets. Paul's team had made it to the state finals just as the boys were getting ready to graduate and had grown from "boys" into young 18- and 19-year-old men. The team was disciplined and fit and had great comradery from competing together over the last 4 years. They were all good kids, got great grades and most had received either academic or sports scholarships to prestigious schools across the country.
Friends close to Bethany and Mike would say they were helicopter parents - they ensured their only son kept his grades up, stayed active in the community, stay off drugs and drinking for the most part and sheltered their child from the bad elements of society.
Mike owned a dental practice in the valley and Bethany helped in his office occasionally and would keep her husband's books. She was also active in local charities and church bazaars and assisted with various soccer and track and field events for the school if needed. They lived in an upscale community in upstate New York, which was very suburban - far from the city. It was an idyllic life far from the trappings of the major metropolis an hour away.
Paul was close to his nineteenth birthday when he got word that he was awarded a partial scholarship to a good school in Boston as well as incentives to be on the track and field team when he hit college in September. But for now, they needed to finish out the remaining meets and close out the year.
Paul's favorite race was the 800 - he was the fastest on his team, finishing the season with a 1:58.02. His teammates excelled in the 1600- and 110-meter hurdles. Each member of the squad brought home record after record and were now facing rivals across the state in the finals.
Many of the parents from Paul's school made the trek into the city for the remaining races and events where they were pitted against teams that were as good or even better than the suburbanites.
For the most part, everyone got along well with the parents and adults from the other schools. Bethany noticed a roughness to the city teams, as she expected, and there was some rather vulgar language thrown around between the urban and suburban kids. Bethany cringed hearing some of the "fuck you" and "eat shit" comments tossed toward her son and his teammates - they weren't used to that language with the local teams, and it worried her that her son may have been too sheltered living in the country.
In addition to the parental fan club, a lot of the girlfriends of the guys on Paul's team tagged along for the event. Back in the day, Bethany would have called them valley or mean girls or even Barbies. She looked up in the stands and saw a sea of pink skirts, little crop top sweaters and yoga pants. She shook her head...Her son dated, but he wasn't prepared for this type of young woman yet. She worried what would happen once he hit college, and some sweet young thing offered him his first pussy. She talked excessively to Mike about it, but Mike shrugged it off and told her that they raised a good boy who would make the right decisions when the time came. He also said that Paul had grown into a responsible and smart young man who was capable of fending off the wiles of adolescent girls gone wild.
She was still mulling over the sights and sounds around her when she heard her girlfriend sigh. Dee and Bethany had been friends for over 10 years despite the differences between the two of them -- While Bethany was always the "good girl" who always did the right thing, married young, got married to her high school sweetheart and had both good grades and a fine standing in the community, Dee was her polar opposite. Denise had been married twice and was now divorced, was a little too loud, drank a little too much and smoked and had a somewhat shadowy reputation as being a little slutty. Bethany knew much of the reputation was contrived but there was an element of truth to some of it. Dee did have an affair with one of the other fathers on the track team, which was scandalized enough, but to hear the other wives and moms talk about her, she was a regular Jezebel.
Bethany and Denise even looked completely different. Dee was tall and blonde with big breasts and an ass that she constantly tried to fit into outfits two sizes too small while Bethany was a trim and petite brunette that constantly worried her butt was going to spread now that she was in her 40s and worked out religiously.
One would wonder how the two women became friends, but they had a commonality in the way they raised their children. Despite all of Dee's shortcomings, she was an excellent mother who doted over her son and made sure he didn't make the same mistakes she made in life. If anything, Dee was stricter than Bethany.
Bethany looked over at her friend and said, "What's the heavy sigh for?"
Dee made a face and let her tongue flop out comically and said, "Just look at those boys!" gesturing down toward the field in front of the stands.
Bethany looked down but all she saw was three of the black kids from one of the inner-city schools warming up. Two were stretching, but one had stripped his shirt off and was flexing a little -- he was lean and muscular and obviously putting on a show for the girls in the stands.
She turned to Dee and said, "What, those kids? What about them?"
Dee wagged her tongue up and down and said, "For Pete's sake, Bethany -- look at those bodies! They're like little black gods. I wonder if the rumors are true about black guys!"
Bethany smacked her in the arm, chiding her.
"They're kids, Dee...you perv!"
Dee laughed and said, "Those are men, not kids -- every single one of them is at least 18 or 19 and sexy as fuck...I'd be all over them if they wanted to try an old lady!"
Bethany winced at her friend's cursing and shook her head, looking around to make sure no one else heard them.
Almost on cue, the one who was flexing looked up at them in the stands and grinned. It had to be a coincidence...they were too far up for the boys, the MEN, on the field to have heard Dee's comments. But then she looked at his face and realized he was looking past her to the left, further up in the stands. He was waving at a group of girls that Bethany sort of recognized from previous meets from another suburban school close to where Paul went. She didn't know them well enough to say hello and the girls were preoccupied gawking at the guys on the field anyhow.
The young black buck grinned and bounded up into the stands to talk to them.
