The muffled sound of footsteps rapidly climbing the stairs came to me through a fog of tiredness, last night's hangover, a multiple cloak of blankets on my bed and the pillow under which my head lay as extra insurance.
"Get up, get up, get up! I need you... now!!"
"Go awa...can't... later, 'K?"
"No, no... get up I need you NOW!"
The pillow I was clinging onto with both hands was rudely ripped away and hoisted across the room, and the blankets were thrown off the foot of the bed. I lay there in just my boxers - well, only just in my boxers, I think they'd worked their way down my hips a bit during last night's dream about Jenny - oh Jenny, oh Jenny, oh - where the fuck are my blankets??
I raised my head and Mum came blurrily into focus.
"Hi Mum" my eyes closed again.
"Pete. Pete. Peter Amesbury..!! If you've not got yourself out of this bed and downstairs in five minutes I'm coming back up here with a bucket of water! I'll be waiting for you in the kitchen with a cup of coffee, now...up!" She thwacked me one on the ass.
Five minutes later in bare feet, with a hastily pulled-on T-shirt and shorts, and my tousled hair looking more like the mop-head in the kitchen corner, I slid into a chair and gulped down mum's coffee.
She was waiting impatiently, taking glances at her watch.
"Tell me when you're ready..?"
I got up, shuffled over to the sink, opened the cold tap and with both hands threw water into my face.
Aaah, Jeez..!! It was freezing...! Well, it was coming up to Christmas, after all...
"Hi Mum, you look nice. What brings you home at..." I glanced at the clock, "ten-past-twelve lunchtime?"
"Pete, listen to me, I've not got much time, I'm on my lunch-break." Ah, my mum, Mrs. Michelle Amesbury, the conservatively dressed teacher. So demure.
"Yes ma'am."
"I need a favour from you. I need you to come out with me tonight, to a pub."
"Can't. I'm bartending at the 'Twisted Wheel' again tonight, you remember? And anyway, the alcohol's probably better there..."
"I'll pay you double..."
"What?!? Mum, you serious?"
"Deadly. I'm in a fix."
"I'm all ears - well, now I am anyway..."
"Pete..."
"Yes?"
"No, not you, the other one..."
"Oh, you mean Peter Pick-Arse-Oh..."
"Will you just stop that? I know you don't get along with him, but I'm going out with him and I want to give it a chance..."
"OK, sorry..."
"Anyway, Pete..." She looked at me. I returned the look, blankly. "Pete went off with his mates to Scotland at the weekend, skiing and..."
A broad grin spread across my face.
"Are you going to say what I think you're going to say?"
"... and he fell and broke his leg in a couple of places..."
"I knew it! Priceless! That pompous twa..! I mean, that silly fellow! Oh, the bloke who's a genius at everything he turns his hand to...I'll bet it was on the nursery slopes as well...haha..!!"
"Now I've told you - stop that..." Pause. "Yes, he was a bit pompous about it, wasn't he?"
We both burst out laughing and I did my best impression of a skier losing his balance and dropping arse-over-tit into a cavern.
"Was probably pissed on the piste..."
We both laughed, but then Mum got serious, placing her hands over mine.
"The thing is this. Maureen and a couple of the others at work have been laying into me for weeks about how I should have got over your dad by now and should have got back into the saddle and found myself a new fella. Well, I kept telling them I'd found one, even before Pete came along, just so's they'd get off my back about it. Then when Pete DID come along, even though Pete's a bit, you know..."
"How many adjectives do you want to go with that?"
"Well, when he came along I was suddenly able to fill in a lot of details, about how he's an artist.."
"He says he's an artist..."
"...and how he's a bit younger than me..."
"Which is no surprise, you could knock the young women straight out the park..." She really could.
She smiled. "And how he's good-looking..."
"Eh...I'll give you that...in a non-homosexual way of course..."
"But now all the staff are meeting up tonight for pre- Christmas drinks, and they made me promise to bring Pete along. If I don't bring him I'll never hear the last of it, they'll think I've been lying to them..."
"But he's injured - legitimate excuse."
"No, they won't believe me. But if you came in his place and pretended to be him..."
"Oh no. Oh no no no NO!!"
"But it's ideal don't you see? You study art and drama, it's a cinch, this is a combination of both! Look at it as your end-of-term exam."
"I've already done those."
"And?"
"It was a doddle."
"See? You're a natural. You'll get extra credits too."
"Oh, how's that?"
"I'll cuddle you for a week."
We both laughed.
"Starting now..." She got up and came round the table, and from behind she put her arms around my chest and pressed herself into me, her breasts squishing into the back of my neck and her chin resting on my head.
Leaning my head back to fully enjoy the effect, I sighed, "In that case, how can I refuse?"
She pressed into me again.
"That one's on the house."
...
Later in the afternoon after Mum had returned from work, had a shower, changed into a loose skirt and put her feet up, I told her we had to do a bit of preparation if we were going to pull this off properly. So, what were her mates liable to ask us about?
Mum laughed at that and replied that the Spanish Inquisition paled in comparison to her workmates, and that dock-workers would blush at some of the things they came out with.
"But Mum, these are teachers...and I thought you wanted me to help you, not chase me away."
"First and foremost, love, they're women with women's needs. Much like me, in fact. Some of them are unmarried and looking full-on at a life of spinsterdom, so any juicy morsel we can toss them is fodder to their fantasies. Some of them have been married for years and are thinking, 'My God, is this all there is?' and when they see you, handsome scrumptious you, they're going to think, 'mmm, maybe not, after all...'. We all of us share our most intimate moments and our deepest fears, we talk candidly about everything through period pains, dildos, size of a partner's organ and most importantly how he makes use of it and we even manage to come up with suggestions for many additional positions not yet listed in the Kama Sutra. You still there? You look a bit pale...Anyway, the good news is that they won't ask you about kinky positions at a first meeting. They might, well, they probably will, corner me and ask me, but you won't be asked to corroborate. If you see them frequently smiling your way afterwards though, you'll know I've given you a good report."
"Thanks, I guess..."
"The bottom line is that a lot of them will be wanting to live vicariously through what they imagine we're up to behind the bedroom door, on the kitchen table and hanging from the chandelier. So, we still on?"