Chapter 1

"So you wanna' be a ballplayer? You know there are a lot of things in life that you want but you have to give up something or work hard at something in order to get it. I can help you get where you want to go, but you're gonna' have to bust your butt to get it. Are you willing to work your ass off? Huh?"

I looked up at the big man, the coach, and without hesitating, said, "I want it, Coach. I'll work at it and work hard at it. Teach me to get there."

The smile the big man gave me told me that I would learn a lot, but he would not be lenient with me or would he favor me over the other kids who wanted the same thing. I somehow knew I could be and would be a ballplayer in the future. Heck, I've already played since Pee Wee league from five years old until now. I'm fourteen, in high school, and want to make the team.

The coach, in a gentler voice, said, "You know there is more to life than baseball, so you'll have to be book smart as well as baseball smart. You need to be the best in your classes just like you want to be the best on the field. Your teachers say you're a good student, so remember that a good ballplayer should also be a good student."

"Yes sir, Coach."

"Okay, Kid, let's load Nelly up and you hit a few. I'll keep her slow at about fourty to fifty, and you show me how you hit. She's set up to throw straight and to the plate every pitch, so I want you to hit one then bunt two. You have greater value if you're a good bunter, and especially when you have no outs and a man on first or second, so let's work on bunts as well as hitting the ball."

I think I surprised him as I was really connecting when it was hitting time, and was laying down decent bunts almost every time. I very seldom popped bunts up or fouled them, but almost always lay the ball down on the line with enough spin to put the ball into the infield. My dad, God rest his soul, had taught me since I was big enough to toss a ball back to him. He was lost to my mom and me early in the Iraq war. He tutored me through Pee Wee and on through my elementary school years, before his reserve unit was called up again and again. He didn't come home the last time the way we sent him off, alive.

Mom was tough. She probably pampered me more than other kids, but I sure knew I was loved. Mom got a job as a cashier at Walmart. She was promoted to lead cashier on the night shift within the first year. She was faithful to the job, was promoted again to head cashier, and worked days so that I was able to see a lot more of her.

I had to get up, make my own breakfast, make my lunch, and get to school when she worked nights. We lived close to the junior high and high schools, so I could ride my bike or run. I loved to run, so I often left the bike at home and ran to school. After school was another story. I was usually tired and didn't want to walk home, so I rode the bus.

We got up about the same time when Mom started working days, and I usually had something ready for her to eat before she went to work. It was neat to be home when she came in and I almost always had supper started. I could make supper and do my homework at the same time. I figured out how to use the slow cooker during baseball seasons, and started it before I went to school and whatever I was cooking was ready by the time Mom and I were home together. She would often come to watch and cheer on the nights I had games. You couldn't ask for more support than I received.

We lost both sides of grandmas and grandpas during all of this. There was some good side to the sadness, as they both left us some help to live on, and toward my future college education. My mom didn't know it, but I was determined to get a scholarship when it was time. I knew the school I wanted to attend, and even e-mailed the scouts for that school to come watch me.

The high school coach was a rough, tough, former pro ballplayer who wanted to teach kids to play. I think he would have rather been coaching in the minors, or even the majors, but as he always said, "It is what it is."

The coach was lobbying with the college I wanted to attend when I was a senior in high school, although I think I was going to make it on my own, since I played all the infield positions and even pitched. I was a pretty good pitcher, but would even prefer to be playing right field. However, I learned right field can be a lot tougher than people think. There are a lot of right-handed batters who can't catch up to a fast fall and hit it straight out to right field. The lefties don't have the same problem for some reason and almost always pull the ball to far right. I shift for them even when the coach is trying to wave me back.

I played well in high school all in all, and learned from the coach. He taught me a lot about how to handle many things. Since I didn't have a man in my life, I sort of looked to coach for direction.

This brings me to talk about some fun time with the coach that I didn't expect. One day when I was a sophomore, the coach had me stay after practice and I met him in his office. He told me, "Go get a shower and we'll talk."

I went to the locker room and stripped. I threw my stuff into my bag to take home to wash, grabbed my towel, and headed to the big shower room.

All of the other players were leaving, so the coach said, "Let me lock up the outside doors so we can be comfortable."

He was only gone a minute while I was finishing washing my buzz cut. The coach was in the shower nozzle next to me. I couldn't help noticing he had what looked like a monster cock. The man smiled at me and asked, "Are you checking out what a grown man looks like? What you're probably going to be packing in a few years?"

I looked up at the coach after staring at him. My dad had been big, and I had seen him many times, but this guy looked bigger than Dad.

Coach said, "You know, there are a lot of people who would object to you and I showering together alone the way we are, but part of the reason we're doing it is because you don't have a dad at home to talk to you about stuff. I want you to know that I will answer your questions and try to keep you in the right direction."

I told the man in the shower with me, "You teach me baseball and teach me how to be a regular guy. You need to teach me about girls. My dad used to tell me stuff but he's gone now so I have a lot of questions."

"Okay, Kid, we'll take some time to have some talks. There's a lot to learn."

I had missed the bus to get home, but I was so wound up that it was easy to run home. I was sweaty when I arrived, so I checked the supper in the slow cooker and headed to the shower.

Mom came home while I was in the shower. She hollered that she was home and told me, "I'm going to get a shower too; get supper ready so we can eat and you can do homework."'

My thoughts ran to my mom who was a really good-looking babe. I'm sure she was flirted with and asked out daily, but she never said a word. She didn't go out and the most she did was go to the movies with me almost every weekend. I told her many times that she should try to date as Dad had been gone a long time and I'm sure he would want her to be happy. She always shrugged it off because she thought she needed to devote her free time to me.

Mom told me that I should probably try to get a job when school was out in May that year, or see if I could take some extra credit courses toward college. I didn't want to work in a burger joint, and the other places I applied had already hired, so I took two extra credit courses that were considered AP or college courses thinking that might help get a scholarship.

In the process of doing this, Coach saw that I was in school every day and invited me to do some off season workouts. He had me get into a Babe Ruth baseball league and worked with me and the teams. I was ecstatic that I was learning more in school and more on the field.

Coach and I had a lot of long discussions about girls and women and what you do with them. He really spent a lot of time trying to instruct me to always treat women with respect and courtesy. He said, "That's the best way to be friends with a girl. You have to be a friend before you can ask them out on a date, of course and you have to go out on a date to ever even get to kiss a girl. So it starts with respect and courtesy."

Now comes the fun part. I kept thinking my mom was a fox. What I really thought was that she was a real MILF if the truth were known, but everyone left us and her alone for the most part because they knew we had lost Dad at war.

I wanted Mom to have fun, so I invited Coach to our house for supper. I had asked Mom on Wednesday if I could ask Coach to supper for Friday and she said that was nice that I would do that. Well, I asked Coach and he said yes, so I was going to show them that I could give them a nice evening.

Coach was pushing us and running with us when he was giving me some training on the field with the other players on Friday. I told him, "You need to save some of that energy for my mom. I want you to treat her like a lady, then treat her like the woman underneath. I'll get out of your way and you do your best to make Mom happy okay?"

The coach looked at me strange, "You really mean this, don't you? Do you really think a woman like your Mom would think twice about a guy like me?"

"Try her, Coach. Be the gentleman you tell me to be, and I know you can be and treat this as a first date or whatever it turns out to be. My mom needs some attention just like you do, but she doesn't have many real close friends."

The Coach laughed before saying, "I'll do my best, Kid. I will treat her like a lady and hope she enjoys it."

Friday supper was really good. I had put some fish in the oven and we had salad and veggies with the fish over rice. My plan was working, as the two of them were enjoying their conversation with the topic being me. Mom always wanted to talk about me, and the coach was right there with her. I used the corkscrew to open a bottle of wine that the wine guide said was good with fish.

We had the salad, then the fish with a lot of wine. The two of them finished the entire bottle by the time I had served them a small bowl of ice cream. I told both of them, "Go into the living room and I'll clean up real quick. I need to meet a couple of buddies for a movie later, so enjoy talking and quit talking about me."

I was through with the kitchen in minutes and went in to give Mom a kiss before I left. I shook hands with Coach and winked at him before heading out.

My buddies really weren't going to meet me at the theater, but I went there anyway. Thankfully I had enough cash for the movie and a box of popcorn. As I stood in the line to be let in for the next showing of a new movie, a couple of the girls in my classes came up and asked, "Can we get in line with you? We want to be sure to get in the top row at the back. That's the best place in the theater. Want to sit with us?"

Duh, that was a silly question.

"Sure, I'd love to. You can share my popcorn."

Sherry, a tall brunette with piercing eyes asked me, "Who are you going out with now, Matt? No one knows who you go out with because you're always messing with baseball."

"No one, Sherry. Who are you going with?"

Sherry grinned real big and pointed to Jeannie and said, "I guess it's Jeannie. We do everything together, so I guess I go out with her."

I laughed and suggested, "Well, you two should make me your person so you'll have some male influence. I would love to escort the two of you around."

Jeannie said, "Good idea, Matt. We could use someone to keep all of those guys from thinking we're gay for each other."

It was Sherry who said, "We are sort of queer for each other, of course, but we don't get many chances to show it or play a lot. We need a place to play other than our homes. Both our mothers are house mouses and don't work. We can't get away doing anything except when we have sleepovers and we can't do that often enough."

"Sherry, Jeannie, how about coming to my house to study after school. You two can play a little and we can study together. I have to get good grades to get a college scholarship. I can be home by four after ball practice. Want to do that?"

I was sitting between the two girls and Sherry leaned in front of me and whispered to Jeannie. Jeannie was nodding her head so I tried to just watch the trailers that were being shown on the big screen. Sherry sat up and kissed my cheek at the same time Jeannie did the same from the other side. Sherry said, "If you let us do that, we'll show you what else we've learned."

I wanted to tell them about what I had been told, but thought I should keep it to myself. This was exciting as I knew the girls, and knew that they were not only good looking, but smart, so I could benefit from their help.

The girls lived in the same direction as I did and we walked toward our neighborhood together. I made sure both were at their homes then walked home. I now had both girls' phone numbers in my cell phone contact list.

Coach's car was still in the driveway, so I tried to be quiet when I entered the back door. I guess I must have been very quiet as I could hear a lot of huffing and puffing going on along with the sound of skin slapping skin. Mom's voice was kept saying "More, more, more, do me harder, more."

Being especially quiet, I went up to my room, stripped to my shorts and went to bed. The knowledge of Coach's dick going in and out of my mom had me stiff as a board. I used my T-shirt to catch thejuice I shot thinking about the two of them fucking. I tried to sleep, but heard Mom squeal again and knew they were still at it. That made me think of Jeannie and Sherry, and wondering how they enjoyed each other. I'd looked at XTUBE on the Internet and saw how the women would suck on each other's titties and each other's pussy's, but other than that, I didn't know what they did.

I know it was a couple of hours later when my door opened, and through half closed eyes, I saw Mom look in on me. The door softly closed, and I head her say, "Well, he must have heard and maybe seen, so you might as well stay, Earl. We can talk to him in the morning if we need to."

I smiled to myself knowing Mom had enjoyed her evening and was going to enjoy the night and morning too. I'm glad for Coach, as I knew he was lonely for company as well.

I was up early and ate cereal as usual the next morning. Saturday is always yard day for me, so I did what I always do. I mowed the front and back lawns, and did the trimming and edging. Mom had a lot of flowers in front that had to be weeded. She always said she would do it, but I tried to get it done for her. I put the mower and the other tools away when they were cleaned, oiled, and gassed. It was now almost eleven, so I went to the kitchen to make a sandwich. I figured on one now, followed by some soup and another sandwich a little later. I had a Babe Ruth ballgame at four, but I couldn't go for pre-game practice and warm-up until two thirty.

Strangely, Mom wasn't down yet and Coach's car was still in the drive. I suppose they may be sleeping really late or they have worn themselves out again. That gave me a smile as well as a boner.

I saw that my cell phone had a message when I went to my room to take a shower. Jeannie and Sherry had both texted me. Jeannie's text said, "Call me to tell me if we can get together at your house this afternoon."

Sherry's text said, "Can Jeannie and I come over to visit today?"

I texted both back about my game but said, "How about coming over this evening after supper and watch TV with me. I think my mom may be busy tonight, so we should be alone."

It was only seconds later that I heard from both. I thought this as silly and called Jeannie. I told her to hang on as soon as she answered while I brought Sherry into the conversation. I told both of them, "I'd really enjoy having you over this evening. Would you like to come over for hot dogs and baked beans if my mom goes out for dinner? I think we have some potato salad too."

Jeannie said, "I'm sure I can get away. How about you, Sherry?"

Sherry said, "My mom might have a date. She doesn't like me to go out when she's gone but she might let me because the two of us are going to Matt's. Hang on, let me ask."

While Sherry was gone, Jeannie told me that her step-dad was always asking her if she was queer for Sherry. She said that she hated the man because he was always so rude. She told me he never talked that way in front of her mother, so she couldn't complain to her. Her mom wouldn't believe her.

Sherry came back to the phone and giggled, "Mom said that if I had a date with Matt that it was good that I was going out. She told me to not do anything crazy, but to make sure I treat Matt right and to not tease him. Can you believe her?"