Hotrod

Susan heard the phone ping. She checked who was messaging. As expected it was her sister Sharon. “He has done it again.”

Susan smiled then sighed, she would have to go visit which she did most days, but today would be calming Sharon down.

The “he” was Michael, Sharon’s eighteen year old son, however only Susan and Sharon called him by his given name, everyone else called him Hotrod.

The women had chosen not to find out about the nickname, in case it reflected something they did not want to know about.

Susan went around late afternoon. Sharon was still seething. Susan was ready, she knew the basics of what was coming. Michael was a good looking, well developed young man. He was extremely popular with many friends and his mother understood that he was a babe magnet, all his friends telling her so. What incensed Sharon was that Michael always chose a similar type of girlfriend. Michael’s school friends were a typical cross section, colours, creeds, tall, short, thin, fuller figure. Sharon had seen them on school visits and approved of the diversity in the school. However Michael had a specific type. Each of his three girlfriends that Sharon knew about were dark brown hair, larger than average body shape and around 5 feet 4 inches. What concerned Sharon was that each of these girls was almost identical to how she and Susan had looked at eighteen!

Susan made three coffees and sat down, Sharon continued to pace the kitchen floor until , Michael appeared. He smiled at Susan and sat down waiting for his mother to stop. Both Michael and Susan had been through this before, so they were not going to start.

“Michael, who is this new girl and why does she look like a young version of Susan and I?”

Michael smiled at her and stirred his coffee, waiting for her to sit down.

“We have had this talk before. To me, you and Susan are the most beautiful women in the world, so it’s no wonder I am attracted.”

Sharon started getting red in the face. Susan thanked Michael for his kind words.

They sat in silence for a minute.

Sharon and Susan knew it was absurd. They were ordinary looking, overweight and their best feature was a heaving bosom, which gave them both backache.

Sharon started again.

“We have been through this. It is very unfair on these girls. You are not dating them for who they are but only because they look like us.”

Michael nodded. Again it was not the first time he had heard this argument.

“If you ask them I am sure they would have said being my date was worth it and if it fizzled out then our time together was everything they would have wished for.”

“Do you know how conceited that sounds? You are a monster!”

And Sharon finished her coffee and went to do something, somewhere out of sight of her conceited monster.

Susan was expected to take up the fight and berate Michael, but she had not got as annoyed as Sharon. Sharon was the elder sister, so Susan was a bit nearer to Michael’s age but saw herself as a housewife. He husband, Dave, was in his early thirties but had become an old man in the last couple of years. His life evolved around work, playing games on his computers and watching sports on television. Susan was aware that he was never very lively, but she was not the catch that all the boys wanted, so she had settled.

She looked at her nephew, who was the kind of boy she would have loved to pay her attention when she was eighteen. His father had left years ago, and Sharon had brought him up to be a well mannered, polite young man. He knew not to make any offensive comments about other people and especially not women. So Sharon calling him conceited was a big insult. He was in big trouble.

“So Mr Michael Hotrod, are you conceited?”

“Not really Susan, What I say is true.