Chapter 16: A Toast to Forever
The neon buzz was the first thing I noticed, a corrosive pink and blue sizzle that seeped into the smoke-hazed air.The Anchor. It was Clemens’s idea, a dive he knew from his rarely-discussed “lost years” between college and whatever he did now. It was the polar opposite of the clean, sunlit courthouse. Samy pushed the heavy door open, releasing a gust of trapped beer-sour breath and the thumping heartbeat of a classic rock bassline.
We claimed a booth near the back, its vinyl patched with duct tape that tugged at my stockings. Clemens was already at the bar, leaning in with a familiarity that suggested history. He returned with three fingers of amber whiskey in grimy glasses, no ice. “To the bride,” he said, his grin broad but his eyes unusually bright. The toast felt less like a celebration and more like a necessary ritual, a sealing of the deal with something stronger than champagne.
The whiskey burned, a hot trail of defiance down my throat. Samy’s hand found my thigh under the small, sticky table, his grip firm, grounding. His wedding band, a simple platinum band we’d bought from a pawn shop on the way, was cool against my skin.Another round appeared.Then another. The alcohol worked fast, melting the sharp edges of the day, blurring the solemn judge’s face into a pleasant haze. Clemens loosened, his stories rolling out—tales of me in college, anxious and studious, that he rendered absurd and heroic. “She re-organized the entire library’s reference system over finals week,” he laughed, sloshing his drink. “For fun.To calm her nerves. The librarians built her a shrine.”
I laughed, too loud, the sound strange in my own ears.Samy watched me, not Clemens. His thumb stroked the sensitive skin of my inner thigh, a rhythmic, distracting pulse. His gaze was dark, intense, a contrast to Clemens’s performative cheer. He was studying the way the dim, foul light caught the cream linen of my dress, the way the neckline gaped slightly as I leaned forward to laugh.
The bar noise became a blanket—the clack of pool balls, the raw-throated arguments, the relentless jukebox cycling through songs of regret. I was adrift in it, anchored only by Samy’s hand on my leg, moving steadily higher with each round Clemens ordered.
When Clemens shoved himself up, swaying, to stumble toward the hallway marked “Pissers,” the balance of the booth shifted.Samy closed the distance his absence left. His body was solid heat against my side.He leaned in, his mouth against my ear. The smell of him—bourbon, sweat, the specific scent of his skin—was overwhelming. The music swallowed his words for anyone else, but they drilled straight into the base of my skull.
“I want to fuck you in that dress,” he growled, the words thick and low.“Right here. Let everyone see who you belong to now. Let them see my wife’s face when she comes.”
A hysterical giggle escaped me, unhinged and wet. I turned my face and his mouth was there, catching the sound, swallowing it. The kiss was deep and sour with liquor, possessive and dirty. His tongue claimed mine, his hand now palming me through my damp underwear, the pressure blunt and demanding. I kissed him back with a ferocity that surprised me, my fingers tangling in his hair, pulling him closer. The world narrowed to the wet slide of our mouths, the rough fabric of my dress gathered in his fist, the hard line of his erection pressing against my hip.
When Clemens slammed back into the booth, we broke apart, breathing ragged. He looked between us, his grin knowing and a little sad.“Getting late for newlyweds,” he slurred. “One more.A proper send-off.”
The final drink was a mistake. It tipped the pleasant blur into a tilting, spinning dissociation. Samy paid the tab, his movements precise despite the alcohol.We spilled out onto the sidewalk, the cold night air a slap. Clemens hugged us both, a clumsy, tight embrace. “Be good to each other,” he mumbled into my hair, and then he was gone, weaving down the street toward the train station.
The walk to the car was a silent, focused journey. Samy held my hand, his grip vise-like, as if I might float away.Inside the car, he didn’t start the engine immediately. He looked at me across the console, his eyes black in the dashboard glow. “You okay?”
I nodded, my head heavy.“I’m your wife.”
“Yeah. You are.” He said it like a challenge, like a wonder.He drove with unnatural concentration. Our cottage was dark, a solitary shell in the sleeping neighborhood.He helped me inside, his hands guiding me as if I were fragile. But once the door closed, shutting out the world, the fragility vanished.
He backed me against the closed door, his body pinning mine.The kiss was devoid of any lingering sweetness. It was hunger, pure and simple. His hands groped under my dress, ripping my stockings, his fingers tearing at the cotton of my panties. “These are in the way,” he muttered, and they were gone, shredded and discarded on the floor.
He turned me around, pressing my cheek against the cool wood of the door. “Hold onto the knob,” he commanded, his voice rough.I obeyed, my fingers closing around the cold brass. He yanked my dress up to my waist, exposing me completely to the dark hallway.The air was cool on my skin. I heard the rustle of his pants, the clink of his belt buckle, and then the thick, solid feel of him, blunt and insistent, pressing against me.He didn’t ask. He just pushed inside. I was wet enough, the alcohol and the want seeing to that, but he was big and the entrance was a fierce, burning stretch.A choked cry tore from my throat. He sank deeper, a slow, merciless invasion until he was fully seated, his body flush against mine, his breath hot on my neck.
“Mine,” he grunted, and began to move.This wasn’t the shower, or the bed.This was a taking. Each thrust drove me harder against the door, the knob digging into my palm.The force of it stole my breath. His hands gripped my hips, fingers digging in, holding me in place for his relentless rhythm. The sound was obscene—skin slapping against skin, my low moans, his ragged breaths. He fucked me with a single-minded intensity, each stroke a punctuation mark on the vows we’d spoken hours before.“You feel that?” he panted, his teeth grazing my shoulder. “That’s me in my wife. Deep in that married pussy.”
The crude words, the dominance, the sheer physical reality of him—it coiled the tension in my belly to a breaking point. The pleasure was sharp, almost painful, a bright wire of sensation thrumming with each brutal thrust. “Samy,” I whimpered.“Come for me,” he ordered, his pace quickening, becoming punishing. “Come all over your husband’s cock. Do it.”
The command, the relentless friction, the pressure of him against that perfect, deep spot—it detonated me. The orgasm ripped through me with violent, shuddering waves, my inner muscles clamping around him in rhythmic pulses. A broken scream muffled itself against the door. He followed instantly, his own release a guttural roar against my ear as he shoved as deep as possible, pumping his heat into me in hot, claiming pulses.We slumped against the door, both breathing like we’d run for miles. He was still inside me, softening.His forehead rested between my shoulder blades. The house was silent except for our heaving breaths.Slowly, he pulled out, a wet, intimate sound in the dark. He turned me gently, his hands cradling my face. In the faint light from the streetlamp outside, his expression was stark, raw.“Welcome home, Mrs.Thorne,” he whispered.
The new name landed softly, a final seal. He led me to the bedroom, where we collapsed into the sheets, too spent to undress fully. The last thing I felt before sleep dragged me under was the weight of his arm across my waist, anchoring me to him, to the bed, to this new and terrifying life we had just made irrevocably real.