The Neallys Ch. 04: Suzanne Cont'd

"It's a simple as that. You do not have to answer me now. I'll leave the door open. But you will not walk through until you tell me that, with all your heart and with all your faith, you accept me and you love me for who I am. Not despite who I am. For what I am."

With that, I stood and headed past the dog run, across Fifth Avenue, across Broadway, and back to my life. I did not look back.

I have not heard from my father since then. But his unexpected and uninvited visit to my office could not put a damper on my wedding.

The Second Wedding

The wedding itself was a small and simple affair. We were married at the Chappaqua Spread, as had my Aunt and Betty. While for the most part we limited the guest list to our "family," that turned out to be a lot of people. I hope I am not forgetting anyone but we had Mary, Betty, Peter and his girlfriend, Michael and his girlfriend, Eileen and Tom (who had set November 10 as their date, finally), Andi and Jack Olson, M.D. (a Columbia Presbyterian bone doctor who we of course called "Captain Jack" which annoyed Andi to no end but with whom she seemed to have fallen hopelessly in love), James and Jennie, Eric (who, as expected, blew everyone away with his piano playing and was accompanied, as a guest and as a singer, by one Lynn Billings, a fellow Yalie who had a voice like a young Ella), my Aunt Elizabeth and Uncle Phil Windsor (my Mother's sister and brother-in-law and the only ones on her side of the California family (and their children) who stood by her), and, happily, my Mother.

Non-family? Patsy and Abby Alford represented the AC, Carol and Rachel (with their twins, both drafted into duty as ring bearers) represented Sullivan & Wilson, Marc and Bob were there for Trallis, and all three of our other first-term study-group members (and close alphabetical-mates), Mike Norton, Bill Monroe, and Marie Newman, represented the law school. A recently-appointed federal judge who Kerry and I had for contracts presided.

Annie Baxter? Not forgotten. She finished super well at the B-School and after toying with and rejecting job offers from Goldman and Google, among many others, she chose a growing New York-based boutique investment bank that had an outpost in London and was looking to set up a beachhead in Hong Kong. Annie, who had never been to New York when she and I started our drive a bit over two years before, was now chomping at the bit to spend time in those other world cities. She tried to get me to promise I would drive with her on those adventures to those cities, but I told her Kerry would not allow it. I still loved her very much.

Annie was still in the apartment although she had swapped the woman who had taken my spot—it was amicable and they got along quite well—for a gentleman called Martin Foster. She met him—I am checking my scorecard on this—at a Columbia event. He is a Brit working on his Ph.D. in History and teaching joint Barnard/Columbia courses in modern European history and helped me (so far as one can get any help on the subject) on some Brexit issues I have at work. I think Annie fell for him because he was a rower, but that's just my theory. I am pretty confident on this one though; he was a rower who was in the fourth seat for Cambridge in the Boat Race. (Look it up.) QED.

So add Martin to the guest list.

And Annie? It was unconventional, but Kerry and I agreed that Annie would give me away. She represented my link between California and New York, literally the person who accompanied me every mile of the way. She was the one who tried to ease the pain of the dark months I had without Kerry. She was the best friend, the best of friends, who happily permitted me to transfer that role to Kerry and she, I think, loved me for longer than anyone else had.

It took some convincing from me, from Kerry, from Mary, to get her to take the giving-away gig. More than anything, it took convincing from my Mother, who sat down alone with Annie, sitting, as it happens, on the very sofa in my (former) apartment where I sat when Kerry visited me that cold January day eighteen months before, and said, Annie later told me, that she had not yet earned the right to undertake such a task.

My Mother—who came to New York on an open ticket, had recently found her own apartment and job in Manhattan, and was often seen running in Riverside Park in one of my Stanford or one of Kerry's Fordham shirts—had, though, earned the right to stand next to me, as Eileen stood next to Kerry, when we exchanged our vows and after I had my first kiss as Ms. Neally, with Ms. Neally, my second kiss was with Mother and Ms. Neally's was with Mom. September 22, 2018. It is engraved on our wedding bands. It did not take much discussion, among Kerry, Mom, Mother, and me, to decide that this was how we were to be known from that day forth.

There is one person who could not be there, my father. He could not be there because he declined to come, like a modern-day Lady Catherine de Bourgh, growling in California while the ceremony proceeded in New York. It remained, everything about it, an abomination to him and he would not accept the condition that I, and Mother, set for his attendance. I send him a monthly check for what I owe him financially—now up to $1,500—which he does not deposit and that is the extent of my contact with him.

Putting on the Ritz-Carlton

Because Kerry had school, we put off our honeymoon. But the Family insisted that we do something on our wedding night. Tom put us in the back seat of his Audi and Mom followed in our—that would be the newly-wedded couple—Camry to White Plains where the two of us were deposited and our car parked by their parents who, after yet more hugs beneath the overhang at the hotel's entrance disappeared into the night.

We were welcomed at the Ritz-Carlton's front desk with "good evening Ms. Neally, good evening Ms. Neally, your suite is ready" and I was thrilled for the zillionth time that day. After checking into the suite, Kerry insisted that we go up to the restaurant on the top floor. We were still in our wedding dresses—we decided to go with dresses and not gowns—and we were again welcomed with "good evening Ms. Neally, good evening Ms. Neally," now being shown to a small table to the south which offered a view to Manhattan and its skyline and being given two flutes of champagne. More than a few staff members and guests smiled at us while we sat, several offering us congratulations and genuine good-wishes.

After savoring the view and finishing our glasses and being told that it had all been taken care of, and us leaving a nice tip, the newlyweds—I cannot resist writing it like this, as it remains such a fairytale to me—headed down to their suite on the 38th floor and once the door was closed and locked, the brides kissed one another. The suite was high enough so that there could be no prying eyes and they left the curtains open and could again see out to Manhattan.

I—a fairytale can only describe so much and go so far—reached behind Kerry's back and slowly unzipped her dress. She stepped out of it, now just in her silk bra and panties, stockings, a garter belt, and heels. She kicked the last of those away, and I unsnapped her stockings and then, after she sat on the bed, slowly removed them as well, dabbing each inch as I went along. The garter belt was next and then she was topless and I leaned over to reach for the globes that I sometimes wished that I had and, well, now actually and legally did have.

She stood, but I put my hand up, again, to stop her. My dress's zipper was to the side, and I slowly pulled it down and allowed my dress to fall to the floor, holding her blue eyes as I did. I stepped over it and kicked it, gently, to the side. Kerry's eyes bulged. I was wearing stockings, a garter belt, and heels.

"Holy shit. You went around—"

"Yes, I've been commando since we left the room to go upstairs."

"Good thing I didn't know 'cause I would have—"

And as she said this I was again leaning into her and whispered, "you would have what?"

"This" and her hands came up to touch my boobs, nipples well extended, and she said, "have I ever told you how much I love these babies, these perfect babies" and she touched them and licked them in turn until I had flattened myself against her and said, "I'm half off the bed. Let's get more comfortable," which I punctuated by grabbing her panties and, after she lifted her butt, pulling them off and tossing them who-knows-where.

This was my wife, my naked wife—I still wore the stockings and garter belt—and I was above her as I lowered myself across her left thigh and as I rubbed her and she rubbed me and she scissored me and she wrapped her right hand to rub my clit and we stared into one another's eyes and slowly and gradually peaked. This was not the wildness we often engaged in, but it was what we wanted this night and after we both used the bathroom to get ready, we got into the bed, both of us now naked, and my wife wrapped her right arm around me, kissed my neck, and said that she was the happiest woman in the world.

"Second," said her wife.

And with that, the events of the day, and night, caught up to us and we dozed off.

The Grand Tour

The suite was booked for two nights so we would have a day to explore White Plains. It does not take a day to explore White Plains. I got up a bit before Kerry, at about eight, and told her while she was still in bed that I was going for an hour or so run, to which she sleepily said, "Go. We'll eat when you get back," and I think I caught a glimmer in her eyes. Then, as I was going through the door she called, "After we shower of course" and I threw her a kiss and was gone.

After heading out for half-an-hour along the course I had mapped out on the path along the Bronx River, I turned around, waving at the runners and cyclists also enjoying the nice early Fall weather as we passed each other—some waving back, others not and all oblivious to the band newly adorning my left ring-finger—and then I was in the elevator and when I knocked the door was opened by my wife after some seconds and she was in a robe. Just a robe. After she sniffed a couple of times and said, "You stink, you need a shower," she pulled me into the bathroom, turned on said shower, stripped me, unrobed herself, and it was not long before we were somewhat futilely attempting to make love with the water cascading over us. We had only tried this a couple of times at the house and it showed, and this was a larger shower with a larger showerhead.

"Babe," she finally said, "I'll get out, you soap and rinse, and I'll meet you in the other room."

When I rushed out, after speedily doing what she had ordered me to do, I was surprised and disappointed that she was dressed! She looked good, but she would look better if she wasn't dressed.

"Let's go down for brunch in the lobby restaurant and then we can both get some air. The Family's paying for it after all."

After eating and exploring downtown White Plains, which amounted to walking up one side of Mamaroneck Avenue and down the other, we grabbed the Camry and just went for a drive, oohing and aahing at the huge spreads in Greenwich before turning back to spend the afternoon naked at the Ritz-Carlton.

We did not leave that suite for the balance of the first day of our marriage. We made love, I don't know how many times, and then sat in the living room part of the suite pretty much as we usually did on Sundays in Tuckahoe, on either end of the sofa with our legs always and our hands occasionally touching and our eyes reading, Kerry with a book, me with a tablet. Although that we were each wearing a robe was a little different.

After a nice dinner in the top-floor restaurant, yet more great sex, and wonderfully deep sleeps, we rousted ourselves on the late side on Monday morning, both of us playing hooky for the morning—our honeymoon would have to wait—and after checking out of the hotel and driving home we took a late train into the city, Kerry for school, me for work, where I was awash in congratulations and more than a few hugs, including a long one from Marc.

A New Normal

On Tuesday, September 25, Kerry and I entered the first door of the third car of the eight-thirteen in Tuckahoe, turned left, and sat in the third row on the right side of the car. The woman who sat on the aisle, Jane Elliot, wished us both "good morning" and we did the same to her.

As the train slowed into 125th Street, we said "excuse me" to Jane Elliot, who rose. Kerry said "thank you" and so did I. And as we passed, Jane Elliot whispered, "Congratulations again. I am so happy for you both."

And Kerry got off to go to school and I continued to Grand Central to work.