The Wedding Story Ch. 01

It's hard to have sex on a plane.

I don't mean physically, but emotionally. Judging the bathroom too small for any measure of real freedom, Marci decided that we should do it when everyone else was asleep. In our seats.

I wasn't so sure, but Marci isn't someone I can easily refuse, especially now that she was twenty weeks pregnant. She gets these cravings, and I have no choice but to try and satisfy each one to the best of my abilities.

She'd told me before we even boarded to be ready; it wasn't sex she craved, but sex on the plane. That was the clincher.

Waiting for it was like waiting for the electric chair. I had my last meal, some time to myself, to reflect on what I'd done, and why I was here, then next thing I know (long before I was ready, or before I'd judged that everyone was asleep), she reached over and pulled down my zipper.

I hissed, surprised. "Marci!"

She smiled, licking her lips in that way that drives me wild. Nothing overly sensual, but playful and sexy all at once. It never fails and she knows it. Revels in it, even. "You knew this was coming, David," she said, fumbling around in my pants. Snaking her hand into my underwear, she lit upon my penis, awake and alert at her touch. It bounced against her palm as I tried to constrain myself, enough so that I was hit with an image of it as a cartoon dog, tongue lolling out, jumping around with its tail wagging, knowing that it's going for a ride.

She pulled her hand back, gave it a few good licks, then replaced it onto my penis.

Warm.

I tried not to moan.

"Come on, David," she said. "This isn't about you."

"Damned if I don't like it anyway," I whispered.

Standing (not yet awkward; it'd be a some time before her pregnancy became onerous), she threw a look around the cabin before lifting her skirt (I'd never seen her in one before; when I mentioned it at the hotel, she looked at me funny and said "Who wears pants for airplane sex?") stepping in front of me, and sitting down.

I felt my penis touch her buttocks; she took hold of it, slid it between her legs, and up into her vagina. Quick and clean, no fuss, no muss.

I'd never minded foreplay (and was quite good, she'd mentioned), but honestly, it was the air show before the fireworks: interesting, amusing, but not half the fun.

Sensation hit me like a kick. Every time she slid up and down, a new wave would roll over me and to a dam somewhere that kept it all contained. With my face in her hair and my arms around her waist, I put my mouth on her shoulder to keep from moaning. Not that I was the louder of the two. At her loudest, Marci sounded as though she were being tortured for information by enemy forces.

"Bite me," she whispered between mewing gasps.

"What?"

"Bite my shoulder."

I did. Gently at first, then harder, I bit her as she fucked me and scratched at my legs with her nails. Her hands pushing up my shorts, she worked her nails into my thighs like a cat sharpening her claws.

The waves built and overpowered the dam; it broke, and I shuddered as pleasure and relief shook me. From the way she trembled in my lap, the way her walls constricted against my dick, I could tell she'd felt the same effect.

I counted her contractions; she stopped at three.

After a minute's rest, during which she lay back against me, panting, she slipped off, stood, fixed her dress, and bent to give me a kiss before heading to the bathroom to clean herself.

Not as concerned with hygiene, I tucked myself back in, pulled up my zipper, and reclined my chair to go to sleep, and just before I fell asleep, my head fell to the side, and I saw a stupid grin on the guy across the aisle. He was pretending to be asleep, but his pupils moved behind his eyelids, and his hand behind his blanket.

"I don't want to go," I said.

Marci had just gotten out of the bathroom, and startled me out of a light sleep as she shuffled her way to the middle seat. "It's your brother," she said, settling into her seat. Lifting the armrests, she lay on her chair and the empty seat next to hers, with her head on a pillow in my lap. My penis gave a small, limp hop before settling down again. "Your family."

"Yeah, I got that."

She turned her head to face me. "Your brother is getting married," she said. "Your youngest brother, the last bachelor of the lot."

"I wasn't there for any of the other ones," I said. "Why should this be different?"

"Because you didn't know me when the others got married."

"I did for the last three."

"Ah, but we weren't dating, love. Just fucking. That would have clinched it fer sure."

"You don't understand," I said, laying my head back, and closing my eyes.

"You're right, I don't."

"I really don't want to go," I said. "I wish you hadn't made me."

"It's a little late, innit?" she said. "We're on a plane headed for the States. Kinda late to voice an opinion, don't you think?"

"I'm done voicing opinions," I said. "Now, I just want to whinge a bit."

She put one hand on my own, and moved it to her stomach. "Feel this?" she said, with the same reverent tone she used when she spoke of our child. "This is you, and this is me. This is our family, and we can't have a family if you can't deal with your own. We can't make a new family if you don't what one ought to be."

"No," I said. "They are not the role models. Not for us. They are not the standards to which I will hold us."

"I want to meet them," said Marci. "Is that not enough?"

"I wouldn't be here if it wasn't," I said. "I just . . . I'm not looking forward to it. Dreading it, even. Like a tax audit, only the auditors have known you your whole life, and remember every embarrassing thing you've ever done."

"Oh? Like what?"

A brief chuckle escaped. "Well, I guarantee that the fourth-grade play will be mentioned at least once."

"What happened?"

"The Farmer in the Dell. I was the farmer."

"And?"

"I. . . ." My eyes cruised the ceiling, refusing to meet hers, while my cheeks burned. "Well, urine was involved."

She giggled. "Running down your leg, I imagine."

"Yeah, laugh," I said, though I couldn't keep the smile from my own voice. "Everyone else did."

"Oh, it must have been terrible for you," she said, but couldn't stop giggling. It got louder and harder, awakening a few sitting close to us. We got shushed, and more than one "shut the fuck up!" but we just laughed.

Marci must have sensed how nervous I was. Even awaiting our luggage, my stomach was all butterflies. My eyes tracked each separate piece of luggage, but saw nothing but memories I'd tried to forget. We hadn't yet left the airport and I already wanted to turn back, to return to London, to our loft a whole universe away.

I let our luggage pass us by, and we would have had to wait longer still if Marci hadn't spotted it.

"Babe!" she cried, tugging on a large suitcase, one too large for her to lift.

"Shit," I said. "Sorry."

I took it from her and set it to the ground. "Sorry, Marci," I muttered again.

She put her bag on her shoulder and tossed her hair aside. "Bit distracted, yeah?"

I shrugged. "It's been a really long time," I muttered. "Jesus, even the airport gets me all nostalgic."

She slipped her arm through mine, and we made our way towards the exit. "It'll be alright, love," said she. "You see if it isn't."

"And if it's not?"

Her elbow lightly jabbed my side. "Then you'll have proven me wrong, and this'll be the last time you see this side of the pond."

"Jesus," I said. "You promise?"

We chose the first available cab, and I burned red hot as I struggled to remember my own former address. The cabbie waited with forced patience as I stammered, then said "Yes sir," in a thick Middle-Eastern accent.

I soaked up the scenery as he made his way through the hoards of cars and eventually found the highway. My heart thumped in my chest and refused to calm. My hand firmly in Marci's, she must have felt this, for after a moment, she reached over and unzipped my fly. The zzzziip! went unheard in the noise of the car's high speed on the highway.

"Marci!" I hissed.

"You need to relax, love," she said, reaching into my pants. "I know just the thing."

"Neither the time nor the place, Marce," I whispered.

"Bollocks. I can think of no better time," said she.

I tried to pull her hands away. "Marci . . . "

But she wasn't listening.

"Jesus," I muttered, and relinquished what had been a half-assed resistance, at any rate, as she pulled my hardening dick from my pants. It jumped when she put her mouth, her warmth on it, and quivered when she moved downwards. The sucking was driving me mad.

Pulling back, she let it go with a slight slurp, then ran her tongue up and down its length. I struggled to hold in a moan.

"What lady doing?" said the cab driver, looking at me through the mirror.

I jumped. Jesus!

"Lady tying her shoes," I said. "Double knots. Very . . . h-hard!"

Marci stifled a giggle by again swallowing my dick, and began moving her head up and down, up and down. My orgasm was rising.

While her warm mouth worked the tip, she rubbed the shaft with her hand, working it perfect unison.

I came quite fast, and she swallowed every bit.

Straightening up, she kissed me on the mouth, her tongue running alongside my lips before pushing past them into my mouth.

"Better?" she whispered.

"Much," I said, and put my mouth to her ear. I sucked an earlobe into my mouth, and nibbled it for a moment. "Remind me to return the favor," I whispered.

By the time the cab had taxied onto our driveway, the blowjob was all but forgotten and only the dread remained. It had slowly built ever since I'd gotten the invitation, and had received a considerable push when Marci had quite matter-of-factly informed me that she'd RSVP'd in the positive, but now, seeing the house, the memories came flooding back, bringing with them it anxiety and near-panic.

"I don't want to be here," I said again, for what must have been the hundredth time.

"I know, baby," said Marci.

She opened the door, but I couldn't move.

"David," she said. "David?"

I couldn't move, my eyes frozen on the front of the house I'd tried to escape from.

"David, is there something else?"

"What?"

"Is there something else," she repeated, her tone indicating how clearly she believed there was.

I took a deep breath, sighed deeply. "There is," I admitted, and slid out of the taxi. "But it's not something I want to talk about right now. Tonight. When everyone's settled in."

"David. . . ."

I took her hand, and we intertwined our fingers. "Marci, please," I said. "This'll be hard enough."

"Oh my God."

The voice came from behind me. I turned and saw Franklin getting out of his car. I hadn't even heard him pull into the driveway.

"Hey, Frankie," I said

"David?"

"Long time, huh?" said I, feeling like an idiot. Like we're talking about the fucking weather.

"Jesus, David. . . ." he trailed off.

"Yeah," I said, awkwardly rubbing the back of my neck. Old idiosyncrasy. "Twelve years' a long time, innit?"

"You're talking funny," he said, candid as ever.

"More than a decade in London," I said. "I guess I picked up a couple-a their mannerisms."

"Please," said Marci. "He was talking like that when I met him. You know, I think he's deluded himself into thinking he's a genuine Brit."

Frankie hardly so much as smiled, but I saw something in his eyes, something I saw in a lot of people meeting Marci for the first time.

It was hard not to instantly like her.

"David," he said. "Who's your friend?"

"Name's Marci Baker," she said, and stepped up to him and gave him a hug. Taken aback, it took him a moment before he returned it.

Then he jerked back, shocked. "Jesus, what was that?"

"Oh, felt that, did you?" she said, putting her hands on her stomach. "Bugger's been kicking all day. Think he'll follow his uncle into professional football, I honestly do."

"You . . . you're pregnant?"

"Blimey, I hope so," she said. "Otherwise this thing's a tumor, and I've been getting sick for nothing."

His eyes turned to me, bewildered. "And it's yours?"

"Yeah, Frankie," I said. "It's mine."

"We think it's his," said Marci, deadpan. "At least, we hope it is. But you never can tell, can you?"

"Jesus, David," he said. I could tell from his face that he'd noticed the absence of a ring on her finger.

"Yeah?"

He shrugged, and shook his head. "Should make for an interesting conversation," he said, and put his hand on the small of Marci's back. "Shall we head in?"

My heart leapt into my throat. I swallowed it down. "Yes, lets," I said, but had trouble moving my feet.

Sidling up next to me, Marci put her hand into mine and pulled me into a hesitant walk towards the front door.

Just don't leg go, I thought, and gave her hand a good squeeze.

My stomach was an agonizing mass of knots that would not go away.

I gave Marci's hand another squeeze as we walked onto the porch, gripping her tightly as we made our way up the steps, to the door.

My hand on the doorknob, I took a deep breath as I turned it and pushed the door open.

Standing on a porch I hadn't seen in a dozen years, I opened a door and entered a house I'd desperately tried to leave behind. The cacophony of a party in full swing was cut short at my arrival; a slew of guests fell silent and took to gaping wide-eyed or open-mouthed or both at me.

My eyes sought out familiar faces: my mother (so much older, I thought), my brothers and my sisters. Stephanie, the youngest (thirteen when I left), had a baby on her hip, and a toddler holding on to her skirt.

A young boy laughed and chased someone from the dining room into the living room, and was in turn chased by a tall blonde with her hair in a ponytail. She was bent low, her eyes hidden from me as she ran after whom I assume was her son, but I knew them nonetheless. They were green, I knew, a dazzling green like you sometimes see in fire, and they burned no less bright or hot.

"Tobias Welcher you get back here this instant!" she hissed, then stopped when she noticed the awkward silence that had so suddenly befallen the room. "What's going—Oh my god," she breathed. "David?"

I had to struggle to find my voice. God damn if she's changed in the least, I found myself thinking.

"Hi, Jessie," I said, and added, after a noticeable moment, "And all."

"David," my mother said. "What are you doing here?"

"There's a wedding on," I said. "I was invited."

"You were?" She hardly tried to hide her incredulity as her eyes flicked to Franklin's, who gave a slight shrug and shake of his head.

"I RSVP'd," I said. "Weeks ago."

"I got it," said Franklin. "I just—I didn't think you'd show up."

"Well here I am," I said.

"By all means," said my mother. "Put away your luggage and join the party. Who is your . . . friend?"

She sounded hopeful, but doubting, like she knew better.

"This is Marci," I said. "My girlfriend."

"Oh," she said, her eyes falling upon Marci's swelling belly. "Oh, David, for heaven's sake."

"Mother," I said, with a warning tone.

Don't, I tried to tell her without speaking.

She seemed to get the message, clamping her mouth resolutely shut, and pressing her lips together until they turned white. Her voice was silent, but her eyes spoke volumes. They spoke of disappointment, and of displeasure, and of condemnation at having lived what she would refer to as a Godless life of sin.

My god, I thought. It's like I never left.

Except for a number of wrinkles, and a proliferation of gray hairs, it was the same look she'd been giving me my whole life. I was over thirty years old, and she still wielded the uncanny power to make me feel like a child again.

Marci wasn't quite so paralyzed; she moved to my mother and embraced her in a loving hug. Not too shy was the mother-to-be. It warmed me up all over again, melting ice and loosening knots in the pit of my stomach.

"So happy to meet you, love," she said. "I've been dyin' to meet the woman who raised the man of my dreams. I feel like I should give ya a reward, or certificate, or something."

"That . . . won't be necessary," my mother said. Her hands moved to Marci's wrists and pulled them away. "You two have . . . known each other long?"

"About eight years," said Marci. "Been dating about seven."

"Seven years," said my mother, throwing me a look. "That's a long time."

A long time to not be married, that look said. A long time to be living in sin.

"Not really," I said. "You'd be surprised how fast time can go."

"I do hope we're not imposing," said Marci. "We can get a hotel room if you don't have the space."

"Not at all," said my mother. "It'll be nice to have the whole family under the same roof again, for the first time in such a long time."

She said that last bit with another pointed look at me, as though it were my fault the whole family hadn't been together in so long.

I guess it was.

"Yeah," I said. "It ought to be . . . interesting."

"Your old room is unoccupied," she said. "Please, take it. And rest; the trip must have been exhausting."

"Actually, I'm quite rested," said I. "I mean, there's not much to do on a sixteen-hour flight but sleep."

And fuck, I wanted to say, but they didn't need to hear that bit.

Marci hid a knowing grin, as though she could read my mind.

"But I do need a shower before dinner," I said. "Marci, if you'd get me my blue shirt, with the stripes . . .? Marci?"

Marci was frowning at the window overlooking the driveway.

"Love," said she. "Where's our luggage?"