Not my Gran but our children's grandmother my mother in law but we all call her Gran. The start of our relationship was ten years ago when I was forty and she was sixty eight. I had been married to her daughter for nearly twenty years and she had been a widow for ten.
She stayed with us often this particular time was the run up to Christmas. When I got home from work, on the day before Christmas Eve, Gran was there busily wrapping the children's presents. My wife had gone to Leeds that morning with the children to visit her sister and get the last few bits and pieces for Christmas. Gran told me that she had rung a few minutes earlier to say that the weather had turned. She wasn't going to chance the M62 over the Penines in the dark with the kids and would see us tomorrow.
Gran showed me what she had bought for my wife before she wrapped it a lovely black silk nightdress. I was very impressed but asked her how she could be sure of the size. She told me that she and my wife were the same size, she had tried it on in the shop and had bought one for my wife and one for herself. My wife and her mother were very thin on my wife this was attractive but her mother, carrying the extra years, looked scraggy.
The weather was bad when I got home and over the next hour while we cleared away the debris of wrapping and hid the presents away it got much worse. Wind, sleet and snow. We were just finishing dinner when the lights went out. We live in the country and it was not unusual to lose the power in bad weather, for minutes, hours or days there was no telling. Along with the power we lost the heating and in our draughty old house that would mean a rapid fall in temperature.
I brought some wood in and lit the fire in the lounge which was very effective and we soon had a little haven of warmth and flickering light. In all my married life I can't remember a time when I had really talked to my mother in law. We'd had the odd one to one conversation but generally I was just there with my wife when we were with her mother. It may seem strange but I have never used her name when speaking to her.
She likes a drop of brandy and I got a bottle out together with a bottle of scotch for myself. Within an hour I had probably talked with her more than I ever had in the past and she was turning from her mum into a person in her own right. I had drawn the sofa up in front of the fire, her at one end and me at the other.
Within another hour we were like old friends and a bit drunk. She asked me why I never used her name and we had a laugh about it. From then on she was Joyce, someone I could have a laugh and a joke with and she was turning from a person into a woman.
She talked about when she was young, the war, the soldiers and airmen she used to date and the excitement of it all. She said that she was a bit of a looker when she was young and used to have beautiful clothes. I believed her I remember her when she was in her late forties and she was a good looking woman then. I remember her going out with her husband all dolled up.
She became a bit fidgety and started scratching her head, I asked what was wrong and she said she had been cleaning all day and needed a shower. That wasn't possible but we did have a tank full of hot water and she could have a bath if she wanted one. I offered to get it ready for her. I set up some candles and a torch in the bathroom and ran the bath. There was no telling when I could get a shower so I asked her to leave the water in and I would have a bath after her. I brought a duvet down with me and said we could use it to keep warm when we were done.
She came down wearing her nightdress and dressing gown. The nightdress came down to her ankles, I had seen it before it was typical old lady wear. Emboldened by our newfound sense of fun feigned disappointment and said. "Oh Joyce I expected the new nightdress, boy you have let me down."
She seemed momentarily confused and unsure of herself. "I didn't think…..I mean……you never said……should I?" Then got a grip on her self, understood the joke and said. "I can't wear that little thing in your freezing cold house. You're bathroom's like an ice box and you've let the fire burn down in here."
I threw a couple of logs on the fire and went up for my bath. I thought about her and had a wank thinking about peeling her nightdress from her old bones. I came down in silk pajamas (kept near the bed in case of fire). She had built the fire right up and it was roaring up the chimney. The place was hot. The duvet was spread on the sofa and she was sitting on it minus the dressing gown and wearing the little black nightdress.
"I've overdone it with the fire." She said speech impaired by all the brandy she'd drunk. "It's roasting hot in here now."
"You look pretty hot yourself." I said. "That nightdress really suits you."
"Thank you she said but I only put it on because it was too hot for the thick cotton one."
I didn't know if I believed her or not but decided to push my luck. "Come on stand up and give me a twirl, let's have a proper look at you."
"Don't be silly Wesley."
"Come on I want to have a proper look." I stood in front of her with my hands out to help her up.
"Oh alright then but I can get up on my own." She said. I moved to the side to give her space and watched as she stood twirled around 360 degrees and sat down again. The nightdress came about half way down her thigh a little longer than a miniskirt. It had thin shoulder straps and was shaped around the breasts with a deep V between them. The back was cut much lower than the front. Wrinkly, sparrow legs, bottom hanging low and nothing, as far as I could see, filling the little boob section of the nightdress but this old girl did something for me. I decided to push my luck a lot more.
"Very, very nice." I said. "But not perfect." I shook my head trying to look concerned.
