Never Too Old

Billy was a good wrestler. Some would go so far as to call him a great wrestler. They would have reason to, as well, at the age of 19 he was an All-American and national champion in his college wrestling division, and during the off-season, when he returned from snowy Michigan to his home in suburban Texas? Well, he was a champion there, too, at the local gym's wrestling club, where every week he would show up, throw opponents around on the mat, and give whatever advice he could to his opponents. It wasn't entirely fair, even ignoring his training, most of the women at the club were well into their adulthood and trying to keep in shape (and, he rather suspected, catch a look at cute young guys in tight singlets, a desire he could at least understand.)

He was an attractive young man, after all, and it gave his mother Lara a chance to watch him do what he did best, without having to travel halfway across the country and wait for over an hour just to get to his match at the inter-college meet. So, quite frankly, he was fine with it. His mother had a good time, he got to practice holds on (with no insult intended) opponents who were little more than tackling dummies, and while it wasn't exactly something he would have chosen, a bunch of sex-starved housewives got to have some nice memories of being pressed up close to a man half their husband's age, something nice to think about when the husband wasn't quite able to satisfy. Long as his mom didn't get involved, well, everybody won. Mostly him literally, of course, but metaphorically everybody won.

That, as it turned out, would be the killer caveat when after a long mix of shoving opponents around followed by a bit of helpful post-match instruction, he overheard the other women of the club talking to his mother.

"No, Lara, you really should give it a try, it's so fun!" One of the other women, an asian woman who he'd been rolling with earlier in the day, encouraged his mother.

"It really is, you know," another woman concurred, "it's exhilarating, it keeps you in good shape, and it can really get you a bit of personal satisfaction when you win, too. Honestly, I had a little match with my husband the other day, and when I got him to tap out, it really felt like nothing else. You've got to give it a try, you'll love it. If nothing else, the keeping in shape is always helpful at our age!" The women laughed. Of course, Billy couldn't help thinking, 'our age' was a bit of an exaggeration, his mother was almost a full decade or so older than the early-thirties women that populated the club.

"Oh, I don't know," his mother demured, "I don't think it's really necessary, you know I ride my bike regularly, and that seems to be doing a good job keeping the fat off and the muscle on," she gave a light chuckle, "Besides, I wouldn't want to take my son's thing away from him. He really does enjoy it, and I don't want him to feel threatened, you know?"

"I think he could use a bit of feeling threatened," another one of the club's women commented, an older woman with dark brown skin that just made her canary yellow wrestling gear stand out more and highlight her admittedly well-developed muscles better, "He's got an attitude on him that if I saw from my son, the boy would be getting a whipping whether I could wrestle or not!"

That comment drew peels of laughter from the women of the club, but it was a little more than Billy really cared to put up with. HE had an attitude on him? Any time he came back to town he would have to remind these women that they could be fine and all but they weren't proper wrestlers before he was able to get them to listen to any of his instructions.

"She's fine, Cathy," he said as he stepped forward, "My mom doesn't need any help keeping in shape-"

"Thank you, Billy," his mother blushed.

"And besides, she's too old for this anyway, she could get hurt."

"BILLY!" his mother sounded annoyed there, "I'm not THAT old, I could wrestle well enough if I wanted to, I just don't want to. It's your thing that you do for fun and I'm not going to stand in the way of it, but I'm NOT some birdlike 90 year old that would break a hip if you so much as shoved her!"

"Yeah, you tell him!" Cathy interjected, "The boy needs to learn to respect his elders before he gets whipped back into place!"

The hotheaded woman was always causing trouble, and Billy sighed, resting his head in his hand for a moment, "Cathy, you're fine at this, but none of you even has a chance when it comes to fighting me, and everyone here knows it. Least of all my mother, who isn't even trained, and doesn't want to learn anyway!"

His mother had been growing increasingly frustrated at his side, and she interjected when he spoke, "Now hold on, Billy, I said I wasn't sure I had to and I didn't want to take your thing away from you, I didn't say anything about not wanting to do it, I could do it perfectly fine if I wanted to!"

"Of course you could, Mom," Billy said, getting a little exasperated from his attempts to just get this conversation over with so he and his mother would be able to get out of the house and head home, "You're fine, you're great, I love you, and besides, there's nothing wrong with admitting you can't manage something at your age."

"What do you mean, 'at her age?'" The asian woman, Mrs. Choi, interrupted.

"I MEAN AT HER AGE!" Billy sighed, "She's fine, she's just too old for the club, that's all!"

"I am not too old for this, Billy!"

"Of course you are!" Billy turned to her, his frustration with Cathy and the rest turning on his mother as well, "You're fine, you're a great person, but you are way too old to do this, especially with me! You're fine, it's fine, there's nothing wrong with it, but you're half my height, half my weight, you have no conditioning, you're completely untrained for it, aren't in shape for a match, and to top everything off, you're old enough to be my mother, a fact that I know because you LITERALLY ARE MY MOTHER," he sighed, "So as much as I love you, when we're on the mat, neither you, nor ANY OF THE OTHER women here, can lay a hand on me!"

As soon as he said it, everything seemed to change. Like a jump-cut in a movie, he found himself looking up at the ceiling of the club from his back. There was a ringing in his ears, and his head hurt like blazes. It wasn't like he'd just gotten smacked and was dizzy, it was like missing time from an alien abduction story, one moment he was standing and yelling at a group of women, the next moment he was staring at the ceiling and the whole world seemed to have gone blurry, as if he was looking through the world through a poorly focused camera. He couldn't quite see what was going on around him, who was there, or any of the other equally vital questions one would typically ask on waking up.

Frankly, he wasn't even sure 'waking up' was a good word for it. He didn't know what had happened, quite frankly, for all he knew he had been dehydrated or even suffered some sort of epileptic seizure that had made him drop and start shaking. The only thing that made him doubt that possibility, as the world took its time resolving itself from a strange shaking haze into an actual image he could process, was the fact that the women surrounding him didn't seem to be worried or calling 9-11. In fact, they were smiling, laughing even, and then laughing harder when they saw him waking up.

"Sleep well, little boy?" Mrs. Choi asked, to the raucous laughter of the other women.

"What happened?" Billy asked, ears still ringing like a little mosquito had found its way in and was buzzing around in his ear canal.

"Your mother just knocked you on your ASS, punk!" Cathy answered, getting peels of laughter once again, and Billy shook his head. Much as he wanted to just get up and kick their asses, he didn't want to try to stand up too fast and too hard, send the blood rushing down, and risk whatever had just happened to him from happening again.

"Okay, seriously what happened."

"HA!" Another one of the women, a redhead who was a little closer to his mother's age than the rest, and she shook her phone a bit, "Look at that! I shouldn't have stopped recording, look, he doesn't even believe it! What do you think happened, you just tripped or something? You called your mom old and out of shape, and she stepped up and hit you like a lady Tyson!"

"That's ridiculous!" Billy glared up at her.

"Musta bit your ear off like Tyson too!" Cathy laughed again, "'Cause it sounds like you don't hear what we're saying. You just got whipped, son, and it was 19 years overdue from what I hear!"

"I got it on tape and everything, if he wants to see!"

"Come on, girls," his mother interrupted, "No need to rub it in too much, I just hit him once and he went down, anyone would, it doesn't make it any different that he's my son."

He glared at her, "Come on, Mom, that's bullshit, seriously, why won't anyone tell me what the hell happened!" He asked, as he started to sit up.

His mother gave him a glare he hadn't seen from her before, and she stepped forward, grabbing the phone out of the red-haired woman's hand as she did. While he was still sitting up, she stepped up, and stepped on his chest, pushing him back to the ground with her legs. He hadn't expected the force of her legs, but he didn't have that much time to think about it as she shoved the phone in his face, and hit the play button. To his surprise, and what could only be described as a small amount of horror, he saw the events play out onscreen. Cathy's comments, his frustration in trying to balance not wanting to insult his mother, and then his rant at the whole group.

From the angle the redhead had taken the video from, he could see the increasing anger on his mother's face as he spoke as well. The more he talked, the more she got pissed off, until by the end of the conversation the woman looked as if she had turned beet red in fury, and as soon as he finished speaking, she stepped forward and lashed out with a punch. It caught him across the cheek, sent him sprawling, and caused the other women to burst out into tears as he collapsed as if reality had forgot to apply a physics engine to his body for a moment. For a few seconds, his mother at least had the decency to looked shocked by what she'd done, but the others were applauding, whipping out phones, congratulating the redhead on getting the shot, and generally celebrating that she'd taken him out so quickly.

"It would be a good idea, Billy," his mother hissed, leaning her foot on him and making him grunt from the pressure she exerted by standing on his torso, "To not call your mother a liar if you don't want to be grounded," she said as the video ended and the phone's image froze with him lying on his back, head lolled backwards and drool coming out of his mouth.

"Or knocked to the grounded!" One of the women added, and the others burst into laughter again.

He could only stare in shock, but soon enough Cathy interrupted the moment and snapped him back to reality, "Show him again, Lara!" Cathy called out, "Boy went down like a sack of potatoes, don't let him act all tough around here anymore, or he'll catch your hands again!"

"You don't need t-" Billy started, but his mother interrupted him by pressing the phone's play function, and letting the video restart from the beginning. He couldn't watch himself get floored a second time and stared up at his mother, his voice sounding almost pleading as he asked "Seriously, Mom," he grunted out, "What are you even doing this for?"

"I'm not doing anything you don't deserve," his mother responded, and pushed down on his chest, driving the air from it, "You've been disrespectful to me and my friends, and Cathy is right, you need to have a bit of respect. I'm proud of you for doing as well as a wrestler as you have, but you are still my son, and I still expect to be treated with a LITTLE bit of respect and gratitude for carrying you for nine months and taking care of you for 19 years. So you know what, Billy?" She asked, "I think I WILL be joining this club. Despite what you seem to think, you don't decide who's in charge, it's open to join, and you can't keep me out."

"Not without getting knocked on his ass!" Mrs. Choi added with a laugh.

Billy's frustration was boiling over, in part from their mockery, but more than that, from the fact he knew they were right. At least, they were right that his mother had been able to knock him out in one blow, and all that made it pretty hard to convince them (or anyone) that she didn't belong in the ring with him. She didn't, of course, she was a lot older, a lot smaller, and a lot weaker than he was, there was no way she should be able to handle him, but she had just knocked him out in front of everyone... And had it on video as well, meaning he probably wouldn't be able to leave it down. Even if he could count on his mother not to bring it up too much, at least without being provoked about it, he was going to have to deal with the other women bringing it up at every chance they got, especially after he took them out in a match and they were looking for a way to get a bit of their heat back.

His face was flushed a bright red, and as the older women laughed, he had to look away, not able to meet their eyes or their mockery. That, of course, just made them laugh more, and he grunted.

"Oh yeah, Lara, look at him, he can't even look at you! Your ma can kick your ass, boy!" Cathy yelled.

His pride compelled him to mount some defense against the insults, and he managed to grunt out, "Yeah, well, she wouldn't if we were wrestling."

"What was that?" Cathy prompted him, "Couldn't hear you there, what did you say?"

He looked up at her, from beneath his mother's foot, "I said she wouldn't if we were wrestling!"

His mother was still furious, but he knew that she knew he was right on that, and she just shrugged, "I mean, you probably would."

Billy should have just let things be there, of course, but he had been mocked enough, and he looked back at his mother, "That's right, I would," he repeated, "I would beat you all over the mats like I do everyone else here if we wrestled. I would if we did pretty much anything other than you suckerpunching me. You're nice, and fine, you're in good shape and at least strong enough to lay me out like you did there, but you couldn't handle me if we were actually wrestling, so quite frankly, you should just step off me, you other girls should step back, and we can go home and forget all about you thinking you should join the wrestling club, alright mom?"

He knew it was a bit much, he was pushing harder than he probably should have, but she had made him look like a joke and he wouldn't let that stand. She was his mom, sure, but he didn't get to be a top college wrestler in his freshman year without a competitive streak, and nobody, not even his mom, was going to make him look like a joke and laugh at him. His mother glared, and stepped off him, before saying what he had expected.

"Alright, Billy," she answered, "If you don't want to learn your lesson, fine. Let's wrestle."

It wasn't nice, but it was exactly what he'd been waiting for. He almost felt bad about luring his mother into a match she had no chance in, but, well... She probably shouldn't have been so rude to him, should she? Don't start fights you can't win, and when it came to his mother against him, there was no way she could win. She had shown a bit of power in her punch, but as he had said, it WAS a suckerpunch. She had smashed him when he wasn't ready. If he was ready to go and prepared, she probably wouldn't have been able to hit him at all, much less land a rocket-blast type slam of her fist against his temple that sent him sprawling.

He took off his exercise jacket and pants and stepped out onto the mats again. He was still wearing the singlet, not having bothered to change back into his normal clothes that were in his bag, so it didn't take him long to get ready for the match. He had expected his mother to simply step out on the mats with him, but to his surprise, she had asked for a moment to get changed. He supposed that made sense, though. She always wore long denim jeans out of modesty, almost never a skirt, and if it was it would be the long wrap type that reached the floor, nothing too short or teasing. Jeans weren't exactly great wrestling clothes. He was surprised, in fact, that she even owned anything else.

His jaw practically hit the floor for the second time that afternoon when she stepped out of the changing room. Not only did she have another outfit, a sports bra and a pair of tight MMA-fighter-style shorts, she looked damn good in it too. If she hadn't been his mother, he would have been salivating at the thought of touching her, in the ring or out. Hell, she WAS his mother, and he was still a bit... Well, no, a LOT intrigued by her muscular form. After all, mother or not, she was a gorgeous woman, and he was a young man who had been... Well, quite frankly a bit too focused on his wrestling and similar extracurricular-style activities to be able to dedicate much time to the sort of things that other young men at college tended to enjoy.

She may have been older, but she would have been incredible in her prime, and even today she was amazing. She had some fat on her, but very little, and it was obvious that whatever she had was more than healthy. Her thighs were huge, she looked like a tour-de-france biker, with muscles far larger, thicker, and more powerful looking than he would have ever expected. For all of his (he would add, true) comments about her age and her not being in any shape to stand up to him on the mats, he could hardly deny that any woman with thighs like those could be a formidable force if she got them around her opponent's head. With proper training, she might have a chance. Unfortunately for her, she didn't have training, and he was going to crush her on the mats.

She, however, looked like she wasn't thinking the same thing. There was a confident smile on her face, one that told him that she was sure she knew how this would end, and it would be the same way as when she smacked him in the jaw a minute ago. That was as frustrating to him as anything else, it was one thing for the other women there to make snarky comments about her laying him out, they'd make snarky comments at him for anything, they were just looking for an excuse to act like they were a match for him or more, and he rarely gave them any. His mother, though, was another matter. She'd never been a bitch to him before, she'd never been cruel or condescending, and while he knew she had a bit of a temper and could even be a bit vindictive at people who pissed her off, he rarely gave her a reason to.

Now, though, she was looking like she thought she could slap him around and smash him into the mat just because she'd floored him with a surprise punch to the jaw. Well, he'd inherited a few traits of his mother's, and the willingness to be vindictive with someone was one of them. If she planning to be mean, he would (so to speak) beat her to the punch. With a confident smile, he told her, "Alright, mom, you know the rules by now. Let's do this two out of three falls. I'll even go all the way after the first two, just so nobody," he shot a look at the other women, "Will have any reason to say that you didn't get every chance possible to beat me."

She looked a bit taken aback by his comments at first, but soon shrugged it off, and even smiled at the idea, "Oh, well, if you insist," she told him, and then added with a bit of a humorous smile, "I don't mind tapping you out three times in a row, Billy, just try to last a little bit longer than you did when I punched you, alright?" She teased him.

"Oh, I promise, this is going to last a long time," he answered back with a bit of a mean grin.