This story is about a man whose mother-in-law offers friendship and understanding after his wife has walked out on him for another man. It's essentially a love story. It does include anal sex so if that's not your thing you may wish to pass on by.
Comments welcome as always.
Sylviafan
Just about the last person I'd have imagined ringing my doorbell on that misty, damp, Saturday afternoon in late November was my mother-in-law. Soon to be my ex-mother-in-law. But before I get on to her unexpected visit, I suppose I should rewind a bit and do some background stuff.
I'm Gareth, Gareth Procter, a thirty-year-old tree surgeon and, until recently, the husband of Grace Procter. Technically we're still married, the decree nisi is due any day, but she now lives with Hugh, her new man, and I haven't seen her in a few weeks, although we talk on the phone, occasionally.
I won't bore you with too much detail; the story of my marriage is nothing new. I married a girl that I loved very much but I couldn't give her the things she wanted. The material things, that is; what I gave her emotionally was never an issue. Tree surgery's a steady trade and I have my own small company, but I'm never going to become a millionaire in that business. So she became dissatisfied and we started to argue and then there were the silences and the unexplained absences and the texts that she had to go to the bathroom to answer. You get the picture. Eventually she told me that it was over and that she had met someone else and a few days after that I came home from work to find that she'd moved out. There weren't any children, which made things worse, really; I'd devoted all my affection to Grace.
This was in late October, and the next few weeks were quite hard for me. Autumn was in full swing and that's the worst time of the year to feel melancholy, with the weather turning damp and cold and the leaves falling as the trees face the little death that is winter. I was coming home to a dark and chilly house and sitting staring at the gas fire for most of the evening, hardly bothering to eat. The guys that work for me kept pressing me to go to the pub with them after work, but I never did and after a while they stopped asking.
Which brings me to the Saturday afternoon where the story really starts. I'd been out in the morning to price up a few jobs for the next couple of weeks and on the way home I'd done a supermarket shop. At just after three o'clock I was sitting in my reclining chair in the front room staring at the picture over the mantelpiece which was an oil painting of Grace and me at a charity ball, taken from a photograph. I'm looking quite dapper in a dinner jacket and Grace is in a flowing ballgown in cream satin that showed off her narrow waist and her striking black hair.
When the doorbell rang I was momentarily confused; it was so long since I'd last heard it. I went out into the hall and opened the door and there in front of me was Grace's mother. 'Hello, Gareth,' she said, and for a couple of seconds I struggled to process what I was seeing.
'Ravleen,' I said at last. 'I wasn't expecting to see you.'
'No, I imagine not,' she replied in the accents of the Punjab region of India. 'May I come in?'
I stood aside and she walked past me and into the front room. I closed the front door and followed her.
'Can I get you a cup of tea or coffee?' I asked. She was standing with her back to the gas fire, which I'd lit just before she arrived, her hands deep in the pockets of her navy-blue gaberdine trench coat. Her legs were encased in knee-length black leather boots.
'Thank you, Gareth, a green tea would be nice.' I went into the kitchen and made us both a green tea - it had been one of Grace's favourites. Back in the front room Ravleen, still in her trench coat, was sitting on the edge of the settee, as though she wasn't planning on staying long. I handed her a mug of tea and sat down in my recliner.
I'm going to put a bit of history in here again because I think it's important for you to understand the dynamic between my mother-in-law and me.
Ravleen Sandhu was born in the Punjab region of India and came to the UK with her parents in the late nineteen-seventies, when she was about five. She's clever and hard-working and determined and she did well at school, winning a place at medical school in London. After graduation she went back north to Leeds, where her parents lived, and worked in the Leeds General Infirmary for a couple of years before getting a place as a General Practitioner in a semi-rural practice in Harrogate.
Somewhere along the line, and much to her parents' dismay, she married Trevor Keating, a patent lawyer working for a big pharmaceutical company, and a few years down the line they had a single daughter, Grace.
I met Grace in a nightclub in Leeds and we got married a year later. I got on well with Trevor, we used to play golf together occasionally, but Grace's mother was less forthcoming. She wasn't actively disapproving but she didn't seem to warm to me and I wondered whether she thought her daughter had married beneath her station; Grace admitted to me once that her mother had referred to my profession as "little more than gardening".
That was sort of ok with me because the other issue with my mother-in-law was that I found her disturbingly attractive and extremely desirable. So if she kept me at a distance that was probably not a bad idea.
Coming back to the present, the gas fire had warmed the room pleasantly and my mother-in-law had slipped her trench coat off revealing a dark-blue jacket and skirt combination over a black, cashmere rollneck jumper. So I will take the opportunity to describe the lady sitting across the room from me.
Ravleen Keating is about five feet seven or eight inches tall. She's slender and long-legged, a model's figure with shapely hips, a firm bust and a flat stomach. Her skin is a delicious toffee-brown colour and her hair is a shiny raven black, with no hint of grey. She wears it side-parted and collar-length where it surrounds a firm-featured face with a strong chin, full-lipped mouth, a nose that's perhaps a tiny bit too big. She's also got high cheekbones and dark, penetrating eyes with heavy lids surmounted by black eyebrows.
Even at weekends she dresses in a suit with a skirt or trousers; I've never seen her in jeans. And she wears quite a lot of eye makeup and a dark-red lipstick that highlights the fullness and the fine shape of her lips. She also paints her fingernails in various shades of red or purple - rather racy for a GP I always thought.
Personality-wise she is reserved, taciturn even. But when she does speak it is with authority and knowledge. All in all she is a mother-in-law to be reckoned with and I had always treated her with a mixture of courtesy and caution. I had also tried to limit my exposure to her because I found her aura of desirability hard to endure for long periods; I would become breathless and feel my heart racing and I would be in danger of saying something embarrassing in my confusion. Now I looked expectantly across the room at her as she sipped her tea.
'There's an elderly lady who lives in the next street,' she began. 'A friend of my parents. I go round once a month or so to see if she's alright. I thought while I was nearby I could come and see if you were alright.'
Her tone was more conciliatory than I had been expecting and I replied in kind. 'That was thoughtful of you,' I said. 'Thank you.'
'So how are you, Gareth? I've been thinking about you these past few weeks. I'm sorry it's taken me so long to do something.' She was leaning forward, her hands on her stockinged knees, her nails a bright cherry-red.
This really didn't sound like the mother-in-law that I knew. I decided to be honest. 'It's been hard,' I admitted. 'Grace was my world and now she's gone there's a big hole in my life and I'm finding it rather hard to fill, if I'm honest.'
'Yes,' Ravleen replied, 'I can imagine.'
And then I started to feel the old familiar sensation of warmth and arousal that I always felt when I was in the same room as my mother-in-law. And this time she and I were alone, a most unusual circumstance. I wondered how long I could keep her talking before she departed, presumably for good - there were no grandchildren to tie us together. I realised that my ever-present sense of loneliness had, at least temporarily, abated and I suddenly felt better than I had for weeks.
'Enough of my depressing life,' I exclaimed. 'How are you, Ravleen?'
'Well, much the same, I suppose, busy as ever.' She told me about her job in the Harrogate practice and the people she worked with; she injected warmth and humour into her conversation, making me laugh a couple of times at her stories. Afterwards she asked about my job.
