"You look very beautiful tonight."
Kayla Schofield turned with a start towards the voice offering the compliment. To her surprise, she found herself looking at her son-in-law.
"Umm, thank you Jason." She replied with a slight hesitation.
"I mean, wow that dress..." he slurred, clearly having enjoy a few too many glasses of wine during the family dinner.
Regardless of his level of intoxication, he was right. His 46-year-old mother-in-law did look fantastic in the light cotton, navy blue tunic dress. It's plunging v-neck nicely showed off her understated cleavage, and it fell several inches north of her knees, allowing her toned legs to be put on full display.
She felt her face flush with embarrassment. Quickly, she glanced around to see if anyone else had overheard his flattering remarks. She breathed a sigh of relief that the two of them were the only two standing by the fireplace; no one else was even remotely within earshot.
"What, this old thing?" Kayla joked playfully, brushing off his comments as nothing more than alcohol-fuelled gibberish.
"This old thing?" He mocked, taking another drink of his wine as he looked her up and down. "C'mon, you know you're smokin' hot."
"Jason, really..." she hushed, hoping to zip him up before anyone could eavesdrop on the conversation and get the wrong impression. "That's enough."
"I tell you, that Richard is one lucky son of a bitch," he continued, ignoring her appeal for discretion. "If you were my wife I'd never let you out of the bedroom."
"Jason!" She snapped, and then cut herself off, realizing that she may have inadvertently drawn the very unwanted attention she was trying to skirt. Quickly, she scanned the room for reaction, her curly blonde hair tossing from side to side as she whipped her head left and right.
"I mean, my God Kayla," he persisted, undeterred. "The things I would do to you if I had you in my bed."
She could not believe what she was hearing. The words coming out of her son-in-law's mouth were simply jaw dropping. It took her several seconds to even fathom a response.
"Jason." She whispered, trying to sound as stern as possible at a low volume. "Shut it. This is completely unacceptable behaviour."
"Relax. Geez, can't you take a compliment?" He replied with a slur. "At least enjoy the flirting."
"We are not flirting." She spat back in disgust. "You've had too much to drink and you're being very rude."
With that, she had had enough. As quickly as she could without making a scene, Kayla sauntered away from him and his drunken accolades towards her. Her heart was racing and her face was still flush, partly with embarrassment and partly with anger. But also partly with something else...
***
As she snuggled into bed with her husband that night, the encounter with her son-in-law weighed heavily on Kayla's mind. Drunk or not, she still could not believe the audacity of his comments towards her. Resolved to try and forget about the whole unfortunate episode, she put her arms around her husband.
"Richard..." She whispered sweetly in his ear.
A somewhat audible response emanated from her quickly dozing husband. The snoring would soon follow.
"Goodnight Richard." She sighed as she rolled over, her frustrations still simmering.
Her mind quickly made its way back to the inappropriate incident from earlier in the evening. The shock of hearing Jason's tactless remarks was still there. But she had to admit that she was torn as to what the other competing emotions were on the interaction. She certainly had every right to be offended, and damn well should have been, but that was not really on the forefront. It would have been natural for her to have felt embarrassed by her daughter's husband's improper inebriated outburst, but that was not it either. There was something else.
Kayla shuddered at the thought of what her other feelings on the evening's events might be. Surely, she told herself, she must have been confusing her uncertainty with how to deal with her son-in-law's drunken statements with some other emotion. Something very basic and primal. That was it. She knew that must be it.
But try as she might, she could not stop herself from replaying Jason's words in her head, allowing those conflicting feelings to churn within her and start to bring up questions. Questions she did not want to know the answers to.
Had she been flattered by his comments? Was that possible? She desperately wanted the answer to be no, but deep down she had to admit to herself that a part of her was flattered to hear such compliments, regardless of how out of place they were. Any woman would feel the same she rationalized, having a good-looking younger man tell them that he thought they were beautiful.
And he was good looking, she had to admit that. Twenty years her junior, he was well built with sandy brown hair and dark brooding eyes. She had been fortunate enough to see him without a shirt on several times around their pool and had gotten a good look at the athletic body that her daughter got to enjoy on a nightly basis.
Regardless of his physical appeal, Kayla knew that she should not have derived and sort of gratification from the words he spoke to her that night. But she knew that she did. She knew that hearing him call her hot had made her blush. And she could not lie to herself and pretend that when he told her that if she were his wife, he would never let her leave the bedroom, that she had not felt at least a little aroused by the prospect of this young stud fantasizing about her sexually. And deep down, she knew that when he said 'The things I would do to you if I had you in my bed', she could not help but imagine what it would be like. She knew all these things, and she felt horrible about it.
However, at the same time she felt something else.
Glancing over at her snoring husband, one of her hands slowly slid under the covers and made its way down her body. Slipping underneath her silk nightie, her fingers instinctively found their way into her panties.
She let out a gasp. Not only from the touch of her own flesh, but also from her amazement at just how wet she had become.
Yes, she most certainly felt something else indeed...
***
"Hello Jason." Kayla greeted as the door opened, more than a hint of disdain in her voice. "Is Kristen here?"
"She's just in the shower." He responded with a friendly smile as he stood in the doorway. "C'mon in." He added, motioning for her to enter.
Dreading the thought of the inevitable confrontation she was about to engage in with her son-in-law, she hesitantly walked into the house. She squeezed her eyes shut and took a deep breath as she stepped past him, unsure of what reaction to expect from the young man.
