NO PORTION(S) OF THIS STORY, NOR THE WORK IN ITS ENTIRETY, MAY BE STORED, COPIED, TRANSMITTED, ALTERED, OR USED IN ANY OTHER WAY(S) WITHOUT THE EXPRESSED, WRITTEN PERMISSION OF THE COPYRIGHT HOLDER.

Author’s note: This story is dedicated to the lovable, loving, lovely, luxurious, lucid, lusty, laudable GODDESS MISTRESS MARQUESA DE SADE. It should not be read by any minor; nor by anyone who is fearful of, or uncomfortable with, the subject of hypnotic, or any other form(s) of, mind control; nor by any person who is fearful of, or uncomfortable with, the topic of female influence or control or domination; nor by any individual who is prohibited or proscribed from doing so for any legal, religious, ethical, moral, or any other reason(s).

Synopsis: The relationship with one’s in-laws can exert a profound influence on one’s marriage and one’s life.

My name is Bradford Sherman. My wife’s name is Mendi. Her biological mother passed away due to an unforeseeable complication resulting from childbirth. Her father was killed in a hit-and-run auto accident two years before we met. Mendi was their only child. Mendi’s only relative in her immediate family is her stepmother, Sumurumus Jacobson.

I dated Mendi for several years, before we were engaged. I never even saw her stepmother until after our engagement. Until I met her, I knew next to diddly-squat about Mrs. Jacobson. Prior to our betrothal, Mendi talked to me at length about her dad, told me everything she’d ever heard regarding the mom she never got to know, and mentioned various tidbits of familial gossip with respect to other members of her extended family clan. The one exception to this was Sumurumus. Even unto this very day, getting my wife to come across with any information about her stepmother is about as profitable as offering free teeth extractions to vampires at high noon of the summer solstice on the equator.

Sumurumus Jacobson is an enigma and a contradiction. Her hair is as straight and as black as any Asian woman’s. Her face is definitely that of a Caucasian. The color of her skin does not belong to either group. She is only 14 years older than my wife and me. Yet, the younger is either intimidated by the former or deathly afraid of Sumurumus or both. My spouse is as deferential to her stepmother as a mere mortal human being would be to a god–or I guess I should say, a goddess. Sumurumus is the most health-conscious person I have ever met. She also enjoys her premium cigars. She has never been one to pass up any opportunity to partake of a gourmet meal of multiple courses. The bar in her home is better stocked than some taverns I have been to. She can dialogue about the nuances of the various eras and styles of European orchestral music, sculpture, painting, and architecture with any, save the most aesthete, connoisseurs. Her knowledge of indigenous cultures from around the globe is uncanny. What she can tell you concerning the specifics of the major dynastic periods in certain East Asian societies is almost eerie. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear she was a major player during the Golden ages of the respective civilizations and cultures she knows so well. Some of her other favorite pastimes are: numismatics, square dancing, hands-on home improvement or repair projects, philately, folk music from around the world, automobile/motorcycle maintenance and repair, soul food, handicrafts, being a histrion in comedic or dramatic community theatrical productions, and various modern or ancient card and board games–among them: backgammon, bridge, Canoga, chess, go, mahjong, mancala, mastermind, Othello, poker, senet, shogi, and whist.

To tell you the truth, I have always been uneasy around my mother-in-law. On occasion, I’ve seen her use her intellect to rattle someone’s cage, derail a person’s train of thought, or disintegrate that individual’s house of cards. It was always kind of exciting to watch. Why? Maybe it is her height which unnerves me? I am a smidgen over six-feet-four-inches tall. There are very few women who can place their chins atop my head while standing barefoot. Mrs. Jacobson is one of them. The size and depth of her knowledge pool has creeped me out to no end more than a few times. Perhaps it is the–usually black, almost always (at least when I’ve seen her) form-fitting clothes she likes to wear that affects me so much? I don’t know what she does for a living. She could be a salesperson’s salesperson. My mother-in-law can seemingly convince just about anyone to do practically anything she wants. Mrs. Sumurumus Jacobson could market refrigerators, air-conditioners, freezers, and ice cube makers at the North Pole during a winter season during an ice age. It could be her very long hair (I have always been a sucker for women with long, thick, beautiful tresses) which can cascade nearly to her knees that rattles me? (It’s simply not right to be turned on by one’s mother-in-law. That’s what I keep telling myself. These feelings just won’t go away.) It could be her voice, which one minute is angelic and the next moment as cold, sharp, and deadly as the keenest, dual-edged rapier, that gets to me? The paradoxes she manifests might be what I find so disturbing or do I think of them as intriguing or is it both?

Mrs. Jacobson has never had a good word to say about me. Okay, I can not purchase a controlling interest in one of the Fortune 100 companies. I do make more money than most people can ever even hope to earn. I have always been respectful to my mother-in-law. I have given her stepdaughter all the love and devotion and adoration I am capable of giving to anyone. Not once has Sumurumus Jacobson spoken to me in a way which was even close to being civil. I simply am unable to fathom the source of her animosity toward me.

Today is our anniversary. For some reason, Mendi asked me to meet her at her stepmother’s home. Unfortunately, I got there before my wife arrived. I unsuccessfully attempted to exchange pleasantries with Mrs. Jacobson. She just sat there stoically glowering at me, verbally responding as laconically as one could speak and still be understood, and savoring the sensual delights of her vintage cognac. At one point, while I was fumbling through this failed strategy, my mother-in-law regally leaned back in her chair. Now I got a better look at her full, firm, ripe breasts with those large, luscious, exquisite nipples. I wondered if she was attempting to be risqué? To make matters worse, then she stretched out and crossed her sumptuously shapely, extraordinarily long legs almost inhumanly loaded and definitely inhumanely (so far as my peace of mind was concerned) laden with luxuriant, lusty, Luciferian loveliness by slowly slithering one foot’s heel from the other gam’s ankle to its kneecap and back again. (“Oh, to be a stocking, or either of the legs in a pair of pantyhose or tights, worn on one of her legs!” For one of the few times in my life, I was sorry I was not a specific inanimate object.) I tried to be nonchalant about it, but it was necessary for me to place my hands in my lap ASAP. All I needed was for her to see the external expression of my second brain revealing, to one and all, that it possessed an exorbitantly active mind of its own. Things wouldn’t have been so bad if she hadn’t elected to wear that sheer, ‘décolletage’, silky, silken (I have always been a sucker for an attractive woman who wears silk, satin, chiffon, velvet, fur, cashmere, or feathers.), peek-a-boo, miniskirt-length cocktail dress. Considering how tall she is every dress or skirt seems so delectably short on her. I could be wrong, but my gesture seemed to elicit a slight, shrewd, sinister, seductive smile from Sumurumus Jacobson. Talk about being the Cheshire cat goddess who ate the canary after she caught the little boy birdie with all its fingers heading in a crash dive past the point of no return to the bottom of the cookie jar. “Oh great,” I thought, “now she’ll probably recount to everyone the time she accurately accused me of wanting to be some kind of a stepmother fucking pervert. It is not right for you to think about doing such things with your mother-in-law. Mendi and I have always had a very active sex life. We made love last night. There is something about this towering and terrifying woman. She is my mother-in-law. I have to keep reminding myself of that immutable fact. Mrs. Sumurumus Jacobson is my mother-in-law. Why won’t these sinful feelings for her just go away and die and leave me in peace? I would sure like to get a nice big and tasty piece of Sumurumus. Stop! it! right! now! She is my mother-in-law. You are nothing but a horny, stupid, sex-crazed idiot. Can it get any worse?” I asked myself. If I’d been alone, I would have slapped, kicked, knocked, punched, and pounded some sense into me.

I had to get my mind out of the gutter as soon as possible. I could only think of one way to do so. Anything Mrs. Jacobson might say to me would be preferable to the thoughts I was having, the desires I felt, and the feelings bubbling up in me.

“Mrs. Jacobson, would you please tell me why you hate me so very, very much? I’m not saying I’m perfect, but I’ve tried to be a good husband. What have I ever done to you?” I had to blink back some tears. Where did they come from? Why does the fact that she despises me almost make me start to bawl? What the hell is this?

She intensely focused her eyes on me. I have never been so disconcertingly discombobulated. Sumurumus Jacobson has enormously humongous, wide set, slanting, disarmingly or disturbingly deep eyes possessing the longest and thickest ‘au naturale” lashes I’ve ever seen. None of these things, nor all of them put together, unnervingly moved me as much as the color of her eyes. She has yellow eyes. Color blindness does not exist in any of the males in my immediate family. I am neither exaggerating nor prevaricating. My mother-in-law has bright, gleaming, burning yellow eyes. A cat having eyes like that is one thing. A homo sapiens with this characteristic is a horse of another color.

“Why do you assume I despise you?”

“You have never been nice to me” I reply.

“There is no reason for Me to be nice to a liar and a charlatan,” she swiftly retorted in her sweet as honey on apple pie voice with that infuriating, accusatory, acerbic tone.

This tears it. I can live with her disliking me. I have always been meticulously scrupulous when it comes to maintaining my honesty. No one has ever had the slightest reason to even consider questioning my integrity. I will put a stop to this right now! I slammed one of my very large fists on the ornately carved, heavy, oaken coffee table in front of me. I winced in pain. All Sumurumus Jacobson did was smile even more broadly and ever so slowly moisten her ruby lips with such calm smugness. I thought of things I would like her to do with that tongue. I didn’t know what made me angrier: my mother-in-law’s impugning my character; her diabolical knowledge of the despicably deviant, dastardly thoughts I was thinking and the frowardly forward, forwardly felonious, intoxicatingly and iniquitously and insegrieviously and irresistibly intimate feelings I was feeling; or Mrs. Sumurumus Jacobson’s deserved and irritating hauteur. “I! am! not! a! liar!” I blurted out the words in a fit of unabashed and unsuppressed rage.

She just sat there as cool as a cucumber floating in intergalactic space and extracted one of those really long cigars from a nearby cedar-lined humidor. “Oh, but you are most assuredly a liar and a Lilliputian, cowardly fraud, My dear Bradford. You have lied to yourself and, far more importantly, to Me.”

“About what?” I protested indignantly.

“About your longings. You have had your naughty, little desires for Me from the moment you first saw Me. Is it not so? Bradford, My son-in-law, I want you to look deep into My eyes and even deeper into your inner being. After doing so, then tell Me I am mistaken–if you can honestly do such. Do not allow your desires for Me to distract you from obeying My charge and acceding to My command.” Then she giggled at me.

“Damn! she knows” I screamed inside my cranium. I could have told her she was being ridiculous. She was sensuously turning the cigar in her left hand, while seductively stroking it with the fingers of her right. The light seemed to glitter and sparkle off her long, perfectly polished nails. I might have denied the whole thing. Her eyes seemed to be growing bigger and becoming more intense. I will swear to you on a mountain of whatever hallowed artifacts or scriptures you desire, that Mrs. Jacobson’s gaze was drilling through my eyes into my brain and commencing the inevitable consumption of everything within my skull. I didn’t want to look at her hands. The way she was handling the head of that cigar and manipulating the rest of it, you would think she was giving some man the thrill of his life. I just couldn’t bear to look into those confident, steady, probing eyes and try to deceive her about anything.

I took a deep breath and let it out exasperatedly. “Okay, alright I have the hots for you. You are one of the sexiest looking women I have ever seen. Are you happy! now?” Part of me wanted to strangle her. My mother-in-law had made me do something I never thought I would ever do. Incest is best, I mean, is so absolutely and totally wrong. Sumurumus Jacobson, that she devil, witching witch, treacherously tricked me into seeing her, staring at her, gazing upon her, wanting her, desiring her, lusting for her, needing her. This was all her fault. She deserved to die. I should go over there and choke my wife’s stepmother. Doing so would mean I’d have to touch her. Feeling up my mother-in-law was the last thing I needed. I knew I was lying. Copping a feel on any part of Sumurumus Jacobson’s body was exactly what I needed and what I wanted most of all. I was horrified, terrified, and thoroughly disgusted with myself. If I touched my mother-in-law right now, I knew I would be lost in lust forever.

If I didn’t know better, I would have sworn that the look she gave me was filled to overflowing with tenderness and compassion. “You have done well, for your beginning. The content of your declaration, however, is incomplete. Is it not so, My dear Bradford?”

“What do you mean?”

“You have said you are very much attracted to Me. I have known this for some time. There are other things you know you should divulge to Me. Is this not so, My little pet?”

I have never claimed to be the most mentally powerful member of the Global and Eternal League of Geniuses. Still, more often than not, I do outpace most people most of the time in the mental agility department. Right now, Mrs. Sumurumus Jacobson was lounging in the winner’s circle and I hadn’t even been placed in the paddock. “I don’t understand. I’m completely confused. What are you talking about? What do you mean by calling me your pet?” This was the longest and most in-depth conversation I’d ever had with my mother-in-law.

“What you feel for Me is far more than simplistic and animalistic male horniness. What you have been sensing, and foolishly attempting to neutralize or countermand or circumvent, is the height, width, length, depth, and degree of My fascinating feminine power and your proper relationship to it and to Me. You are My pet, for you desire to belong to Me. You yearn to be lovingly and lustfully lorded over and owned by Me, tenderly and totally trained by Me, correctly and completely controlled by Me.”

One of Sumurumus Jacobson’s traits is she rarely, if ever, says or does anything without having a very good reason. Just because I had less than a subatomic shred of a clue to where she was going, didn’t mean she hadn’t booked our hotel accommodations at our destination point several seasons ago. “I assume you are in a state of clarity. I, on the other hand, am mired head down in an opaque, bottomless, and unfathomable peat bog.”

“Acknowledging one’s limitations is frequently the first step in one’s positive evolution.” She was almost reassuring. That’s how I would have described the tone and manner she employed, if it had been utilized by anyone else. “You are feeling your desire to be influenced by Me. You are vainly struggling to resist the knowledge that you ought to be controlled by Me. You seek to anticipate what it will be like once you are dominated by Me.”

“I have never wanted to be controlled or dominated by any person.”

“It may be the case that you never expressed such things heretofore. You do want them. I suspect you have secretly yearned to experience the influence and control and domination of a powerful, seductive, and worthy woman, like Myself, for some time.”

Only on a few occasions have I seen a look similar to the one on her countenance. It was like a hungry animal preparing to sink its fangs into a fresh kill or a high-quality piece of meat. She was so calm, so confident, so self-assured, so assertive, so desirable.

“Dammit, She’s right,” I told myself. As I listened to her words, I knew beyond mere normal knowledge that she was absolutely right about everything. How did She have awareness of things about me which were hidden even from me? I had to find out what was going on. “How did you know?” I finally stammered out.

“How did I know about what?”

“This is hard enough for me as it is. I beg You, I mean please, do not make this more difficult than it is already?”

“Of course not, My dear Bradford. I do not wish to frighten My vulnerable, and yet oh so brave, darling, little pet of a man any more than he already is. Many things in one’s life: any accomplishment; a stage in one’s education; a profound, beneficial experience–just to name a few–should be thought of as a plateau, not a summit. The world of BDSM is no exception. No matter how much experience one has in this erotic realm, there will always be other new and wonderful things one can do. You will also find that this saying is true. “As you give up the bondage frequently found in freedom, you gain the freedom frequently found in bondage.”” Sumurumus studied Her son-in-law’s countenance. “Your raised eyebrows, the rolling of your eyeballs, and your mouth’s quizzical expression indicate either you do not believe Me or you don’t understand the concept I’ve just espoused. Perhaps My expostulatory exposition will help to allay your confusion. You are the entrepreneurial founder, chairman of the board, CEO, and CFO of a quite successful company. Your leadership positions require you to make many complex and influential decisions on a daily basis. The responsibilities assigned to an intern in the mailroom, secretarial pool, or the shipping department do not compare with your own. I suspect there may be times when you desire to divest yourself of some or all of the burdens of business you bare. It is even so in a dominance-and-submission relationship. A worthwhile submissive elects to relinquish some degree of control for a time. As you study and experientially delve into BDSM, you will find that the more you surrender control to your trustworthy Mother-in-law the more relaxed, peaceful, and liberated you shall feel and become. Though what I have said may seem at best paradoxical and at worst impossible, all I have said is the total truth. The dominant assumes the role of decision-maker. It is the dominant individual’s responsibility to provide a safe and sane environment in which both partners can comfortably and pleasurably explore the scope and depth of themselves and this remarkably fascinating form of an exciting, incredibly participatory erotic relationship. You will need an experienced and trustworthy Guide, if you are even to begin to comprehend what I am talking about. Someone must show you the ropes–figuratively speaking. As a nubie subbie you are very apprehensive. “What am I getting myself into? What will She do with and to me? What are my boundaries? Will Mistress Sumurumus respect my limitations?” These are probably but a few of the queries racing through and tumbling in your agitated heart and mind. I shall tell you something which may give you some peace of mind. In My judgment, psychological restraint is far more subtle, effective, enduring, and pleasurable than mere crude physical bondage.”

I don’t know why Sumurumus’s revelation concerning Her preferences in BDSM calmed me. All I know is it did the trick. I knew I needed to do some heavy contemplation with regard to what was happening around here. Part of me wanted to make my apologies, beg her permission (Her permission! Where did that come from?), head for the hills like a bat out of Hell, and lock myself away from the universe in my Fortress of Solitude. I desperately needed some alone time until I could figure out the answer to this riddle. What in the world is wrong with me? Instead of proceeding on this course of action, I asked her a question. “So, how then do we proceed?” I asked hesitantly.

“For now, all you are required to do is focus your sexy eyes on this magnificent and delicious exemplar of the tobacconists’ confection. My cigar, what will happen to it, and that which will flow from it symbolizes your destiny.”

This was the first compliment Mrs. Sumurumus Jacobson had ever given me. It felt really good to know there was something about me which pleased her. Why was Her approval so important to me? She was only my mother-in-law. (After our wedding, Mendi and I never socialized, and rarely had any contact, with Mrs. Jacobson. When I questioned my wife about this, she just stared at me, shook her head, rolled her eyes, and said “I don’t want to deal with her.” That was all Mendi would say on the subject.) I wondered if there was anything else I could do that She would like? Part of me wanted to know. Part of me was afraid to ask, or even entertain, the question. I had always been certain Sumurumus never thought anything remotely related to sexuality or sexiness could, or should, ever be connected to me. Her remark about the cigar and my future intrigued me. Would I be a pleasure stick from which she would take a couple of puffs and then be unceremoniously tossed into the ash can? Was She preparing me to be ultimately extinguished in a blaze of glory? Is it possible I could become one of her favorite brands? Why did the idea of being utterly manipulated, absolutely inveigled, and completely consumed by Someone who may have considered, and yet might classify, me as lower than paramecium excrement appeal to me so much?

I snapped my mind back to Her last statement. “How so?”

She moved the cigar directly into my line of sight. “According to the apophthegm, “Rome wasn’t built in a day.” Likewise, it takes far longer to craft an excellent cigar, than it does to mass produce one of its ubiquitous and inferior distant, bastard stepcousins. A cigar consists of filler tobacco, tobacco used to make the binder, and wrapper leaves. As you embrace your position in My service, your life shall become filled to overflowing with a multitude of pleasures. Know this to be true, you shall be bound to Me, My pet. Yes, I said bound to Me lovingly, longingly, lustfully, and everlastingly. My fascinated fly shall be witchingly wrapped in the words, wiles, webs, whims, and ways of the sexy Spider and scintillating Siren sitting so very close to you. Come to Me, and you shall be fervently filled with My dazzling desires. Come to Me, and you will be beguilingly bound by My captivating commands. Come to Me, and you indeed shall know the illicit and delicious delicacies of being wonderfully wrapped in My soothing sorceries.”

Her next action was to pick up an elegant double-bladed cigar cutter and hold it next to the cigar’s foot. I shrank back in my armchair. Now that I knew of Her proclivity for BDSM, I didn’t even want to consider what else She may have snipped, clipped, or cut off with that large, wicked-looking cutter thing.

She picked up on my reticence. “I am an evocative, avocational, erotically mesmerizing Dominatrix, not a man-hating monster. I do have a fiendishly fascinating body and possess a devilishly wicked imagination.” I began to feel a little more at ease. As if in response to my slight calm, she spoke again. “You shall soon learn about the prolific and pervasive and persuasive powers of My body and some of the shameless and sophisticated and sexy secrets of My mind. You shall acquire this knowledge much to your pleasure and much to your peril.” Sumurumus proceeded to further unnerve me with that laugh of Hers.

“Do You exist to torment me?” I asked. My eyes gazed transfixed at Her. With the twin mirrors of my heart, two doorways to my mind, and dual windows to my soul I was beseeching Her obsequiously and pleading with Her beyond measure.

“I exist for many purposes. Nevertheless I will torment you beyond your greatest and deepest fears. I shall simultaneously tantalize you far surpassing your wildest and most pleasing fantasies.”

Sumurumus once more took charge of our interactions. “Look at My cigar cutter” She said authoritatively while opening its blades. “To achieve the maximum amount of pleasure, a cigar’s foot must be properly prepared. Before you were willing to acknowledge your true place in the cosmos, your life was filled with unnecessary restrictions, self-imposed limitations, and fallacious and foolish assumptions.” She deftly snipped the end of the cigar and flicked what She had skillfully (and inexplicably very sexily and sexually stimulating to me) removed into a nearby ash tray. “I have cut away and discarded the unwanted end of this cigar. As you embrace your new and wonderful life, some of the trifling trappings of your old existence shall be cut off and cast away.”

She picked up and ignited a beautifully crafted lighter. She held it a couple of inches below the end of the cigar. The flame rose and warmed the cigar until it was alight. “As fire is to smoking this wonderful cigar, so is the flame of passion to our relationship. Passion is essential, so that our bond of hypnotic bondage may flourish. It can not be forced. It must be allowed to grow at its own pace. Our passion shall yield to each of us dimensions of unspeakably perfect pleasures. As the flame permits the consumption of this cigar, so our passion shall consummate and consume us both.”

For several minutes, Sumurumus Jacobson sat back, smoked that cigar, and said not a word. I kept my focus upon her, on the burning end of that cigar, and upon the heady aroma it emitted. Until now, I’d always thought of cigars as being nothing more than overgrown, overpriced cigarettes on steroids with a really bad attitude. I watched the expressions on Her countenance as she savored the cigar’s flavor and relished its aroma. My eyes gazed upon the patterns she made with the smoke. Rings and various other designs were drawn in various directions. Unexpectedly and inexplicably, this was a very relaxing experience.

At length, Mrs. Jacobson extinguished the cigar and fixed me with Her patrician, penetrating, perplexing, persuasive, perspicacious, paralyzing, persistent, and pacifying eyes. “Bradford, your next task is to look deeply into My irresistible and enticing and entrancing eyes. Yes, My dear boy, just relax, let yourself go, and lose yourself deeper and deeper still and yet still deeper in the depthless depths of My dazzling, demanding, delightful, daunting, delicious, and domineering feline eyes. Selflessly surrender your sexy self and submissive soul solely to the seducing sorceries skillfully spun by My sensuous siren’s voice. You know you have longed to focus all of your attention upon My intoxicatingly intimidating, intimidatingly intoxicating eyes. My voluptuous voice is as soft and sexy as satin and as strong as stainless steel. You are certain that you need to gaze into My captivating cat’s eyes and allow everything in your world to easily and peacefully slip away. Yes, each and every item in your environment smoothly slipping and serenely sliding away. The only things which are of any importance to you are My beautiful, beguiling, bewitching eyes and My sexy voice, My sensuous ‘vox’, My seductive and velvety ‘voix’. You are aware that you have had an insatiable and irresistible craving to simply stare into My magnetic, magical, magnificent, magnanimous, majestic, merciless, merciful, maternal, and matriarchal eyes. And as you focus more and still more of your awareness upon My voice and My ensorcelling eyes, you will find that My voice and My eyes are delightfully filling your world and soothingly captivating the core, the corridors, and the corners of your consciousness.”

As Mrs. Sumurumus Jacobson spoke these words, a great and wonderful calm blissfully descended over my mind and wrapped itself around my heart. I also felt I was being overwhelmed by wave after wave of anxiety. I never believed I was into such things as being hypnotized and that bondage-and-submission weirdness. Yet, here I was–actually looking deeper and deeper into Mrs. Jacobson’s eyes and feeling like all of my existence was Her voice and those ever expanding, eternally entrancing, everlastingly enervating eyes. Letting your mother-in-law hypnotize you is strange enough. What was happening to me? You’re not supposed to be turned on by the possibility that your wife’s stepmother will get inside your head and turn your mind into a pretzel–for Jiminy Cricket’s sake. Before this day was done, I might be sore in places I didn’t think I had muscles. I could be in pain for hours or days because I’d been spanked, punched, whipped, slapped, kicked, prodded, burned, frozen, pierced, electrically shocked, and I didn’t even want to think of what else might soon be done to me by the sole mother figure (Her figure was so delicious and so classically feminine.) in my wife’s existence and the only mother-in-law I’d ever had. Could I stop what was taking place before it got entirely out-of-hand?……..End Part 1. To be continued!