The Wedding Feast
Simon, a successful, athletically handsome, and intelligent twenty-six-year-old London estate agent, returned to his family home in Sussex for his sister Susan's wedding. A Christmas wedding. The evening before the main event, the men all went to the local pub whilst the ladies stayed at the house and prepared the bride to be in the house.
Around eleven, the men arrived back and barged into the front door, whereupon Simon's mother, Dorothy, barred the way.
"Now wait, it's bad luck to see the bride the night before the wedding."
Simon saw the women run upstairs, giggling, glimpsing the telltale white hem of his sister's wedding gown as they disappeared. His sister's fiancΓ©e, Jack, not blind drunk but a little worse for wear, pushed past Dorothy.
"It's fucking freezing out here. Let me in, you."
Simon was taken aback, especially when the other men said nothing and followed Jack, ignoring Dorothy.
"The spirit cabinet's in the dining room," shouted Simon's father. "Anyone for a nightcap?"
The men filed past, with Jack, a little dazed, left standing in the hall. Simon put his arm round Jack's shoulder in a friendly manner and guided him into the lounge. He pulled the door to, but it didn't quite shut. Simon roughly pushed Jack onto the settee.
"Sit down, fucker, and listen to me."
"Wha-wha-what are you doing, mate?"
"I'm not your mate, and you just crossed a line." Jack looked dazed and also scared. "You know I was chucked out of school for kicking another lad's head in, don't you?"
"I... er..." Jack stammers.
"Stand up." Jack stood, a good four inches shorter than Simon. "Nobody, but nobody insults my mum. Understand?" Jack nodded his head, lip quivering. "So, you will apologise, now."
"Alright, just don't hit me."
"And you will address mum as Mrs Hadley at all times from now on, not Dorothy, and definitely not 'you'. Got that, because if you don't, you'll be going up that aisle in a wheelchair tomorrow."
Dorothy, still standing in the hall, overheard the whole interchange through the slightly ajar lounge door, and glowed with motherly pride at Simon's defence of her. She also felt an unnerving sensation between her legs, with her sex, usually a little dry from menopause, moistening at her son's strident tones. Jack shuffled into the hall.
"I'm sorry for being rude, Mrs Hadley,"" he muttered.
"Oh, that's alright," beamed Dorothy. "We'll think nothing of it, now go and join the other men in the dining room." For the rest of the evening, Dorothy's gaze barely left Simon.
The following morning, Simon's father and sister Susan had already gone to the hotel where the reception would be held, so that the bride to be could make final preparations before her father gave her away. Back at the house, Dorothy was dressed and ready, and Simon admired his mother, in her tight-fitting two-piece suit, high heels, and seamed stockings, a black fascinator hat adorning her blonde permed hair.
"You're a mother to be proud of," he told her, and she glowed once more.
"Come with me to the loft?" she asked Simon. "I've something to show you." Simon followed his mother up the stairs to the landing, watching her soft curves undulate and her taught, seamed calves tense with each tread.
"You go first," Dorothy giggled, pointing to an extending ladder that led to a ceiling hatch.. "I shouldn't go up that in front of a man wearing this tight skirt." So son, then mother, climbed into the loft, whereupon Dorothy switched on a dim, shadeless light bulb, then opened an ancient looking cardboard box in the corner, to reveal her wedding dress.
"I wore this twenty-eight years ago." She held the dress up against herself.
"You could still get into that, mum. Your figure has hardly changed."
"Thank you darling. Now, I have a little confession to make." Dorothy then admitted to Simon she overheard him talking to Jack. Simon flinched a little, remembering the trouble he got into for fighting as a teenager.
"Sorry mum, I just lost it."
"No, no, I loved it, made me feel... well, protected. My knight in shining armour." She stood on tiptoe and kissed his cheek. Simon showed no reaction.
"Oh, why don't you give me a little more affection?"
Simon said nothing and looked to the floor. He wondered if putting his arms around his mother might lead to more than the affection of a son.
"I'm so proud of you Simon."
"You never said that before, Mum. I always felt when I got into trouble at school you didn't think I was good enough, then when my career took off you were just sarcastic. Told me I was some kind of superman."
"You are darling. I..." Dorothy looked coy, batting heavily macarid lashes that touched Simon's senses somehow, despite her being his mother. "You, now how can I say this... are something your father can never be. He is a good man, don't get me wrong, but you... well... you're special."
"Come on Mum," joked Simon, whilst still feeling odd at his mother's look. "We're going to be late."
"You go down the ladder first. My modesty will be fine walking down facing you, as long as I takes off my high heels. It won't be as unladylike as it would have been going up backwards," she laughed. Simon went first as instructed, then Dorothy descended the ladder, stilettoes in hand.
"Be a darling and slip these on for me, I don't want to go stockinged feet on the cold floor." She stood on the lowest ladder rung and Simon knelt, taking his mother's exquisite stockinged feet in hand and slipping them into her beautiful court shoes. Their eyes met for a brief moment. Was there a recognition of something more than just a mother and son?
They took the family Range Rover to the church, Simon driving through what was already becoming a serious snowstorm, as extreme weather warning's interrupted the music on the radio.
The wedding itself was a blizzard of white lace and whispered promises, the kind that filled Simon's heart with a warmth that had nothing to do with the crackling fire inside the entrance to the church. His sister Susan looked like a porcelain doll in her gown, a stark contrast to the tempestuous weather brewing outside. Jack, her soon-to-be husband, was the picture of nervous excitement, his eyes darting around the room like a caged bird seeking an escape from the impending vows.
Dorothy, on the other hand, was a vision of poised elegance. Her eyes gleamed with a secret amusement as she watched the guests arrive, as if she were in on a delicious joke that no one else knew.
During the wedding breakfast, a fabulous feast held in an ornate baroque banqueting hall, Dorothy sat next to her husband, with the bride and groom next to him and Jack's parents the other side. Simon sat next to Dorothy.
"Darling," she whispered. "I er... have to go back to the house."