Mum's Day Out
[This story follows on from "A Hot Saturday" which sets the scene for the following.]
It was a few days after a very hot, oppressive week when I queried Mum about her looking unusually happy after going swimming with her friend, Irene, at the local swimming centre. I was sitting at the kitchen table watching mum fussing around with pots whilst preparing the evening meal. It seemed the best time to asked her,
"What happened last Saturday to make you look so pleased with yourself?"
"Whatever do you mean, Jean?" she asked. Mum always answered a question with a question, so I expected it. She also did it when she had something to hide and I think that was the reason this time, so I probed her further with my questions.
"When you came home your seemed to be unusually pleased with yourself, did you get lucky in the pool?" I asked directly.
Her face flushed a brighter pink, "What possessed you to ask a question like that, Jean?" she rebuked me, but I could see there was more to this story.
"Well? Did you? Get lucky I mean." She nodded and answered,
"Well, to tell the truth, it wasn't our usual swim day, it did take an unexpected turn and it turned into quite an odd afternoon," she confessed.
"So, you got lucky? Yes?" I waited for her response.
"I am not sure you would call it lucky, but it certainly was different. The whole afternoon was very different. It was difficult to swim in the pool -- it was more crowded than usual. It seemed there were more children in the large pool, not in the intermediate one where they normally swim. Their yelling and squealing were unbearable, so Irene and I headed towards the café to have a cold drink, when two men stopped us." I went to ask her a question, but she put her hand up to stop me and continued her tale, "It was the same two men I told you about some time ago. You know, the ones who let us touch them?" I knew who she meant.
"I remember you telling me about a hand-job in the pool, but surely not in the café?" I asked her.
"No, don't be silly. Of course not. I'm not like that, you should know that," she snapped back and went on, "as we were walking towards them, they were heading back from somewhere in the complex. They asked us where we were going. We told them we were going to the café. One of them, the one I now know as Ian, suggested that if we wanted a cold glass of chilled wine, he could arrange it.
"From where we were standing, we could see that the café area was crowded, with more squealing kids, so the wine sounded like a great alternative. It was now that the other man introduced himself as Chris. He asked Irene her name and so it seemed to work out that he would escort Irene to the wine and Ian would walk with me. I told him my name was Shirley, then added my friends call me Shirl, so he immediately adopted the shortened name, which aroused me," Mum explained.
"Where were they going to get wine at an alcohol-free public venue?" I asked her.
"Well, that is where the day started to get more interesting, they said they both had cooler boxes in their cars if we wanted to walk to the car park. I suggested we needed to change out of our swimwear first, but Ian said it wasn't necessary, besides they were wearing their swimwear, which had not gone unnoticed by me."
"Where were their cars, then?" I asked in extreme curiosity. It was a very hot day and I suspected the cars would be hot too.
"In the car park. Where else would they be?" she retorted harshly, making my question sound silly.
"It's OK, Mum, your story is confusing," I tried to quieten her, "are you able to move to the car park dressed in swimwear?" I asked her.
"Irene and I sometimes leave our clothes in the car and walk to the pool in our swimsuits if we aren't going to stay long, that's normal," she explained.
"Well, go on," I urged her, "So you went to their cars for a drink?" I wanted to find out what made Mum so happy when she arrived home and the car park story wasn't doing it for me.
"They both had their own cars there, Ian has a Toyota and Chris has a Ford, just in case you wanted to know that too," she said sarcastically.
"No, not interested, but what happened next?" I asked.
"I can tell you my story, but after comparing notes with Irene later, after the wine, it was a similar experience for her with Chris. It was almost like those evil men had pre-planned the meeting."
"I sat in the front of the car with Ian. He asked what type of wine I liked and I suggested a chardonnay. He went to the back of the car and came back with a well-known label on the bottle and two nicely chilled glasses. He gave me the two glasses to hold while he poured a liberal amount of wine into each one," she explained.
I interrupted her by saying, "It sounds like they have done that before."
"I didn't ask, but the coolness of the glass on my lips and the taste of a good wine was better than whatever the café could serve," she said. I waited for Mum to continue, "As we sipped the wine, he asked about me and my family, you know, idle chat, like most men do at a first meeting. Then he put his finger under the shoulder strap of my swimsuit, you know, my new one, and slid it down the front. 'Can I slip it off your shoulder, Shirl?', he asked me. I didn't know what to say, but I did say it wasn't what I expected of him. He just smiled and took his finger away."
I was keen to hear more of this odd liaison, "Is that it?" I asked her, "He stopped doing it, did he?"
"No, of course not. He pointed to the bulge in his swim trunks and said to me, 'Do you remember this, some weeks ago, in the pool?' Of course, I did, I told him what I did then was not my usual behaviour, but he said I did it with such expertise and asked me to do it again." Mum came to the table and sat on the chair opposite and gave me a very stern look. She looked me in the eye and said, "I hope you don't tell your father about this; what I did wasn't all that bad, just fun and I hope you know how to keep secrets, at your age." I nodded.
