Perhaps I am writing this to understand why I made the poor choices I made. Or perhaps I am merely try to justify my actions to myself. But here is my story.
My background:
I married Bryan's father, Jim, five years ago, when Bryan was only twelve years old.
Jim had been as single parent for years. His first wife, Bryan's mother, decided motherhood and 'living the life of a housewife' were not for her. She divorced Jim, gave up full custody of Bryan and moved to Europe to pursue her dreams. I have never met her, and neither Jim or Bryan have heard from her in over ten years. To a large extent, she no longer exists in any of our lives.
At the time of this story (a little over a year ago), I was twenty four; and I was considerably younger than Jim, who was thirty six. In fact, I was actually closer to Bryan's age at sixteen, than I was to my husband's age.
Bryan was an easy child to raise and to love. He was respectful, quiet and somewhat shy. Because of the closeness of our ages, I never felt the role of stepmother-stepson described our relationship. He called me 'Brenda'.
Bryan and I often talked about things as equals rather than as a person of authority instructing a child. I felt my role was more about guiding him than commanding him to obey.
I guess what I am trying to explain is that I was an advisor and a trusted consult more than an authoritative parent.
My excuse:
My mind wanders frequently; often in ways I do not intend, or want. I do not know if I am unique or not, but on occasion, I find myself thinking about things that society deems highly inappropriate. As I watched him grow from an adolescent to a fine young man, some of these inappropriate thoughts involved Bryan.
These daydreams or fantasies were not terribly wicked; but they were definitely inappropriate. I would imagine accidently walking in on him masturbating; Bryan accidently walking in on me when I was dressing, or when I was in the shower.
When I allowed myself to explore inappropriate fantasies, I did so with the strong belief that these were only fantasies; I would never actually act upon them. Further, I was comforted by the belief that in the real world in which I live, I knew I would not be tempted to act out any of these perverse desires that haunted my subconscious because I believed I would never actually be placed in a situation that would allow me to act inappropriately with my stepson.
As you will see momentarily, I was wrong.
Fate is unpredictable and, on occasion, cruel. So as you read my story, I ask you to try to refrain from judging me too harshly. It was an unexpected and unplanned set of events that lead to my most heinous sin, and my demise. It was an avalanche of emotions associated with my father's unexpected illness and his potentially imminent death, the unwise decision I made to drink with my stepson to alleviate my sense of loss, and being thrust into the unusual situation where I was forced to share a hotel room with my stepson, that combined to drive me to cross a line that I never intended to cross.
I never expected or intended to do the things that I did. Before judging me, you should realize that perhaps you too could make grievous mistakes if placed in the 'wrong situation', with the proper (or perhaps I should say improper?) emotional state of mind.
I am not proud of what I did; but this is my story nonetheless.
Chapter one - the intimacy starts
I was sitting at my desk in my downtown Chicago office building when I received the call from my father's wife, Lorraine. Dad had suffered a stroke and was in the ICU in a hospital in Albuquerque. He had not regained consciousness, and his recovery was uncertain. Lorraine advised me that I really needed to come to Albuquerque quickly.
At the time I got this phone call, Jim had been away for nearly three months working a construction job in Alaska. I was upset that he was not here to support me in my time of need. Since Jim was working as a contract electrician and was not a full-time employee of the construction company, he was not entitled to all the benefits a full-time employee would get.
If he left the job site to accompany me to New Mexico to see my father, Jim would be replaced and would essentially lose his job. We could not afford for Jim to lose his job. We needed the money.
I was numb. No one ever is prepared to receive a phone call telling them that their father has had a stroke and may not recover. I really longed for Jim to be here for emotional support. But I would have to handle this crisis myself.
I arranged to pick up Bryan, at his high school and then we both headed home to pack for the trip. Bryan was a few weeks past his sixteenth birthday, and was in his sophomore year in high school. Bryan looked shocked when I described what had been told to me about his step grandfather's stroke; but he did not react much. I wondered what was going through his mind as we prepared to travel across country to see my father.
We packed quickly and left our home shortly after lunch for a multi-day journey to see my father before it was too late.
It was after one o'clock in the afternoon when Bryan and I headed out of Chicago in my Honda Civic. I headed south on I-55 as our trek began. It would take us three full days of driving. Bryan and I would share the driving.
As we drove, we talked about my dad, our family, Bryan's and my closeness. I cried some and laughed some. In my emotionally needy state, I felt even closer to Bryan than usual. At the time, it did not feel wrong to lean on Bryan the way I did. In fact, our closeness seemed natural and appropriate.
It was almost nine p.m. when we pulled off the road for the night outside St. Louis, looking for a place to spend the night. Since the trip was completely unplanned, we did not have reservations. We went to three different motels before finding one with vacancies: a Holiday Inn Express which did not have any rooms with two twin beds, only rooms with single king beds. I really could not afford separate rooms.
As I was traveling with my teenage stepson, this presented an awkward situation; however, we were both exhausted and were far too tired to get back on the road and continue to look for a more suitable sleeping arrangement. Bryan and I agreed we could share a king size bed tonight under these circumstances.
We went to a local Pizza Hut and ordered a large sausage and mushroom pizza to go. I bought two bottles of cheap merlot wine from the convenience store, thinking that I could use a little help getting to sleep to night.
Soon we were in our room, eating pizza while sitting on the king sized bed. I had my first glass of wine with pizza while Bryan drank a large root beer.
I took a shower, dried my hair and came to bed wearing a t-shirt and my panties. I was not overly matronly, but neither was I wearing anything revealing or overly provocative. I exited the bathroom to find Bryan lying on top of the bed in his boxers without a shirt; he watching television. I was immediately impressed with the nice physique he had now. He had nice muscle tone; his chest and arms were developing nicely. I also noticed his 'package' in front of his boxers bulged slightly, indicating that he was developing nicely there too. I must admit, I took some degree of pride in the fine looking young man my stepson had become.
Bryan's father was a big man, about six foot, four inches tall and 225 pounds. Bryan favored his father, he was slender, but had grown to six foot, three inches and was approaching 200 pounds. He had broad shoulders, muscular arms, and a nicely developed chest. No question about it, Bryan was going to be very popular with the girls once he got over his shyness. In a somewhat perverse way, I envied the young women that I knew Bryan would sexually ravage and pleasure some day soon.
On the other hand, I was a rather petite woman at five foot, five inches (if I stretched), and about 115 pounds. I have a slender figure with small, perky 34B cup breasts. I have green eyes, and a pretty smile. Objectively speaking, I am not 'hard on the eyes'. In fact most men tell me that I am quite pretty.
As I confessed earlier, at the beginning of this chapter, at times while masturbating, I would fantasize that I accidently caught Bryan masturbating, or he caught me in some various stage of undress. In these fantasies, the situation was awkward, embarrassing to both of us, but arousing to both of us. It seemed like a harmless fantasy at the time.
I opened the bottle of wine and poured myself a second, sizeable glass of the burgundy colored nectar that I hoped would relax me enough to get some sleep. I climbed on the bed next to Bryan and sipped my wine.
"Brenda, can I taste that?" Bryan asked. Bryan always referred to me by my first name rather than 'mom'.
I handed him the glass and watched with interest. He sipped the merlot, and nodded appreciatively. I then asked, "would you like a glass?"
He nodded. I saw no harm, so I poured him a glass and refilled my own glass.
We spent the next hour or so, talking and together we consumed the entire bottle of wine. Bryan got a little gabby and frisky with the two glasses of wine he had. I could feel myself becoming slightly light headed from my third glass; usually my limit is two.
It was after 10:30 p.m., when I declared it was time for 'lights out'; we needed our sleep.
