Morning's first light beamed through the open bedroom window as a naked Billy Burke opened his eyes and attempted to shake off the after-effects of a deep sleep. The room that slowly came into focus around him was unfamiliar at first, but became more recognizable as his vision cleared. The room took on a frightening clarity as the dark haired nineteen year old not only remembered where he was, but who he was with. A realization that was enough to almost still his heart.
Trying hard to overcome his panic, he carefully began to turn, hoping not to disturb the equally naked woman still sleeping only a foot away. With her back turned towards him, all Billy could see was that part of her back and shoulders above the blue sheet, along with the back of her short, dark red hair. He didn't need to see her face to know it belonged to a woman twice his age. More importantly, it was the face of his best friend's mother.
Billy took a deep breath, hoping to dispel the last of the night's fog and sort through the events that had led him here. But as he did so, he realized that it wasn't last night that the journey had begun, but on an even warmer night a few months back.
-=-=-=-
The backyard barbecue to celebrate the nation's bicentennial had finally broken up about ten o'clock, and as he had originally planned, Billy Burke was staying over at the North' house where the party had been held. He and Tommy North had been friends almost as far back as either could remember, ever since Tommy and his mother had moved onto the block back when he was in sixth grade.
The Fourth of July blowout had been more than just a celebration of the country's two hundredth birthday; it had also been a goodbye party for Tommy. Next Saturday, he was moving down to San Diego to spend the rest of the summer with his Dad before enrolling for the fall term at Southern California State.
The Northes had divorced just before Kay and Tommy moved to Lakewood and Billy had only seen pictures of Thomas North Sr. Tommy never discussed why his parents had split in the six years they'd known each other, but Billy always assumed it had to have been something pretty bad for them to have had to put two hundred miles between them afterwards.
Billy and Tommy had always seemed unlikely friends, at least to those didn't really know them. A year apart in age, Billy was on his second go around in the grade they'd met in, having failed both math and science. Tommy, on the other hand, quickly found a place on the honor role after just his first semester. Billy was an all around jock, playing baseball and ice hockey in both middle and high schools, while Tommy spent his free time in the school labs and library. Yet, despite these differences, the two had become and remained the best of friends.
It was well past midnight when Billy, rising to answer nature's call, headed down to the small bathroom by the kitchen. The upstairs bathroom was closer, but it was also right next to Mrs. North' bedroom and he didn't want to chance waking her this late at night. It was only after he was exiting the closet sized facility that he noticed that the kitchen light was on. Curious, he stepped inside to investigate.
"Oh, hi Mrs. North," Billy said once he stepped inside and saw the forty- two year old sitting at the kitchen table in her bathrobe. Resting in front of her was a steaming cup of tea and a small tray of biscuits.
Surprised, Kay North looked up and smiled, saying as she did that she hoped she hadn't woken Billy up by making too much noise. Billy laughed as he explained that he had come downstairs to use the bathroom to avoid doing the same with her.
"Well, as long as you're up, would you like a cup of tea?" Kay asked.
"Sure, why not?" Billy replied, thinking as he pulled out one of the empty chairs at the small metal and Formica table that he really wasn't all that tired anyway.
As Kay took another cup out of the cabinet and a teabag out of a container on the counter, Billy thought again how different Mrs. North was from his own mother. They were just about the same age, but you would never know it from the way the woman now pouring hot water over the teabag acted.
It certainly wasn't a physical thing. If asked to describe Kay North, Billy would've been hard pressed to come up with any words other than average looking, or at the best, good for a woman her age. Descriptions that he could just as easily apply to any of his other friend's mothers. You knew of course that they were women and not just mothers, but you really didn't think of them as sexual. Well, at least not most of them.
The exception of course had to be Lila McCann, Susan McCann's mother. Five foot six, with dark brown hair, movie star looks and a body that half the girls at Eisenhower High would envy, Mrs. McCann was hardly what you thought of as somebody's mom. Just last month, at the pool party for Susan's graduation, the forty-one year old had appeared in a two piece bathing suit that had brought more than a small measure of embarrassment to just about every teenage boy in attendance - Billy included.
No, it was more a matter of personality and attitude. Kay North wrote a newspaper column for the Telegraph, a weekly paper, called Kay's Korner. Highly popular, the subject of each column was entirely up to her and in the five years she had been writing it, she'd left readers with reactions varying from amusement to outright shock. But even when the latter was the case, they were always there the following Friday when her next missive appeared.
"Did you have a good time at the party?" Kay asked as she sat the mug down in front of Billy, sliding the biscuits towards him as well.
"Absolutely, it was a total blast," Billy said, reaching for the small milk pitcher on the center of the table. "I know Tommy had a great time too."
"You don't know how glad I am to hear that," Kay said as she sat back down. "I got so busy making sure everything was going right that I didn't have a chance to ask him."
"Trust me, I don't think there was anyone there that didn't enjoy themselves," Billy said as he took a sip of the hot brew after pouring a bit of milk into it.
"I wanted the night to be special for him," Kay said, sipping from her own cup. "I still can't believe he'll be gone in less than a week."
"Me either," Billy replied, adding a bit more milk to his cup.
"I really wish he was going to a college closer to home," Kay remarked, "but Southern California State was his father's alma mater and since he's the one paying the tuition, I can't complain too much. It is a really good school after all."
Billy subconsciously filed away one more little fact about the never seen Mr. North. He obviously was well off enough to be able to afford to send his son to a quite expensive school. His own prospects for higher education would've depended on an sports scholarship, but he was nowhere near that good an athlete.
"So what are your plans come the fall?" Kay asked. "Still not interested in going to college?"
"Nah, Tommy's the one with the brains," Billy replied. " We all know that if it wasn't for all the tutoring he gave me this last year I might not have even made it out of high school."
"Not that I think that's totally true, he enjoyed helping you," she interjected. "And I think that he benefited from the things you helped him with just as much as those he helped you with, if not more."
"I didn't really do anything for him that he couldn't have done for himself," Billy insisted. "In fact, I really can't think of anything I did that made that much of a difference."
"Oh I don't know about that," Kay said with a mischievous grin. "I would think that getting him laid for his birthday certainly made a big difference in his life. Certainly more than passing trigonometry had on yours."
Billy choked on his tea, barely managing not to spit out a mouthful all over the table. With disbelief on his face, he carefully put the mug back down on the table.
"Didn't think I knew about that, did you?" Kay laughed.
The look on his face said that he obviously didn't.
"I'm not going to say that Rachel Morgenstern would've been my choice for my son's first time, given the reputation that seems to follow her around, but I will admit that balling a cheerleader certainly did wonders for his self-esteem," Kay continued. "It also seems to have definitely dispelled that nasty rumor that Tommy might not be all boy. Yes, I knew about that too."
"I took care of the asshole that was spreading that rumor," Billy quickly said, upset that Mrs. North had even known about it.
