As was usual every second weekend during the summer my parents split, I went to stay with my father one Saturday, but on arrival was told that he was going on a golfing trip, so even though I was twenty-one at the time wasn't trusted to be alone in case I "had some sort of party" would have to go back to my mother's.
It wasn't the first time, so I didn't bother asking why I'd not been told before walking all the way to his house, just shrugged, stuffed the "apologetic" pair of bank notes in my pocket, and squeezed next to his golf clubs in the back of "Alan's" car for the ten-minute journey home while they had a conversation without either of them bothering to include me.
My mother had already left to attend a church fundraising BBQ that she'd organised for the women's group, and knowing that there would food and beers, decided to go along on the pretence of seeing if she needed any help. I showered, shaved, dressed in a pair of faded denims and a logoed white Nike T-shirt, and not wanting to be on the receiving end of one her "irresponsible, selfish, anti-father" tirades if I'd told her where my father had gone, decided to say I'd forgotten something at home and was going back later.
When I got to the back of church and opened the large wooden gate which led to the back garden, my mother's response on seeing me was surprisingly cheerful as none of the thirty or so middle-aged women gathered in small groups on the lawn wanted the smell of smoke on their clothes from flipping burgers and turning sausages. My lie was accepted without her even asking what I'd "forgotten", and when she "volunteered" me to be the day's chef, I happily wandered over to the table covered with small plastic tubs that my mother pointed at on the far corner of the lawn.
After four failed attempts, I finally managed to light the old-fashioned charcoal grill placed by an old shed which presumably stored gardening tools, and started cooking as the women carried on having their conversations without any of them even seeming to notice that I was there.
It took about thirty minutes before anybody came anywhere near me, and when they did, it was just to fill a plate and then go without any of them even responding to my attempts at starting a conversation.
It was only when they'd all been fed, some of them two or three times, that an overweight forty-something woman with short hair dyed jet black hair walked up to the grill and introduced herself: "Hello", she smiled holding her hand out, "I'm Debbie Kennedy, and I'm told that you're Gordon, Mary's son."
I nodded a simple "yes", and tried not to stare at the outline her cigar-butt sized nipples made as they pressed against a black bikini top which was clearly visible under an almost-transparent pale pink blouse which rippled in the summer breeze.
"Pleased to meet you," I replied shaking her hand while gesturing towards the grill, "What would you like?"
Her smile widened into a grin which darkened the lines on her face so that she looked like someone had drawn a spider's web on her with a very sharp pencil as she said, "Well to start with, I'd like to know why you're barbequing in a nice shirt. The smoke could ruin it. Why don't you take it off?"
"I didn't think of that," I laughed, and though I'd been cooking while wearing it for almost an hour, pulled my T-shirt up and over my head, and gestured at the food, "Now what would you like?"
Her grin widened even more as she sipped beer from a small glass bottle and murmured, "For you not to stop there."
I tried not to laugh and could only manage to stammer nervously in reply: "I, I, I mean what do you want?"
She took a deep breath, opened her mouth slightly, poked out the tip of her tongue, ran it around the inside of her lips as if relishing the taste of something and stage-whispered "Like? Want? Same thing really or am I not making myself very clear?"
I stuttered in surprise, "Y, Y, N, N, No, I, I, I mean, I'm just...."
Mrs Kennedy lifted her index finger to my lips, smirked, and waved her glass bottle in the direction of the other women. "Do you have any idea why none of them have spoken to you?" she said quietly and then continued without waiting for me to reply, "it's because just looking at someone young and decorative like you might give them naughty thoughts, and they'd have to wait until getting home to do anything."
"I'm sorry," I said very quietly while trying to breathe normally, "I don't think I understand."
Mrs Kennedy laughed loudly, quickly realised that every head in the garden had turned towards us, took a very deep breath, composed herself and whispered, "They'll find somewhere nice and quiet where they won't be disturbed, and do something like this."
She took a step back a few paces to the side of the shed out of sight of everyone except me, sipped at her drink and added with a snigger, "Only probably with something battery operated."
I didn't move, just stared like a rabbit caught in a car's headlights as she used the hand holding the bottle to lift the hem of her flimsy floral-patterned summer skirt up past her waist, and said solemly, "Watch for anybody coming over."
Mrs Kennedy then hooked two fingers of her other hand into the side of her black bikini briefs, pulled them to one side, rubbed the top of the bottle against the glistening folds of pink flesh hanging below a triangle of thick black wiry hair, grinned, and slowly pushed the neck out of sight.
My heart beat so ferociously that it felt like my chest would burst. It was the most excting, most erotic thing I had ever seen, and as my jaw dropped open, Mrs Kennedy slowly rotated the bottle, slid it up and down, and eventually pushed it so far inside her that only the base was visible.
I stared helplessly at the small green circle neatly framed by several layers of throbbing crimson folds of skin just below a mass of wiry black hair, felt my throat dry completely as she squeezed the tips of two fingers and a thumb around the glass, and by the time she pulled the bottle out I was close to making a mess in my trousers.
"I'm leaving now," she sniggered derisively, "you can finish this."
Mrs Kennedy held the bottle in the tips of her fingers and thumb and handed it to me without breaking eye contact. It was dripping with her juices and difficult to hold with shaking hands, but I slowly and very deliberately licked the top, tilted my head back, and drank the beer.
Debbie Kennedy smirked in a way that suggested superiority, approval, satisfaction and victory, and when she said: "Down the hill, house on the corner of the first street, number one, large gated driveway with a camera and an intercom, but the little door will be unlocked so walk straight in," I was close to bursting without even being touched.
Mrs Kennedy then strode past me, spoke to three of the women gathered on the lawn, had a brief conversation with my mother and left the church grounds without even glancing back in my direction.
