Chapter 15: The Wedding Day
The organ swelled and I forgot to breathe. Emily stood at the back of the sanctuary, framed by the arch of white roses her mother had insisted on, and she was a vision I had conjured in my head ten thousand times since I was sixteen. White lace clung to her small frame, a modest neckline, long sleeves, a train that pooled on the marble like spilled cream. She wore my grandmother's veil and a smile that was pure, radiant, and absolutely terrifying.
My hands trembled against my thighs. The best man, my roommate Derek, nudged me. "Easy there, cowboy. She's not going anywhere."
That was the problem. She was going somewhere. She was walking down this aisle toward me, and every step brought her closer to the lie we were about to tell God and two hundred witnesses.
Pastor Mitchell stood at my right, his robes crisp, his face beaming with paternal pride. He had married my parents. He had baptized me at nine. He had counseled us for six weeks, and in all that time he never once suspected that the girl approaching the altar had been fisted, tattooed, and run through by the black fraternity of the university.
The congregation rose. I heard my mother sniffle, my father clear his throat. Emily's father walked her down the aisle with the careful gait of a man giving away a pearl to a worthy swine.
Her eyes found mine and I saw it. That secret. The one that made her smile a degree too serene, her step a shade too deliberate. She knew what she was. She knew what I was. She knew what we had built on the rotting foundation of Lucy Serrano's good intentions.
"Who gives this woman to be married to this man?" Pastor Mitchell asked.
"Her mother and I do." Emily's father's voice cracked beautifully. He placed her hand on my arm, and the weight of it nearly buckled my knees.
Emily squeezed my elbow. "Steady," she whispered.
I steadied.
The vows came out of me on autopilot. "I, Caleb, take thee, Emily, to be my wedded wife, to have and to hold from this day forward..." The words tasted like ash and honey. For better, for worse. For richer, for poorer. In sickness and in health.
In gangbangs and in fisting.
I kept my voice level. Emily's voice rang out like a bell, pure and clear, and I watched her lips form the same promises while I remembered her lips wrapped around Miguel's cock, around Kaleb's, around strangers I had counted through a FaceTime screen.
"You may now kiss your bride," Pastor Mitchell announced.
Emily rose on her toes. Her lips met mine, soft, warm, and I tasted the faint trace of peppermint from the breath spray she always carried. She lingered a second longer than proper, and when she pulled back, her eyes sparkled with something that was not innocent at all.
"All right, everyone," Pastor Mitchell boomed, "I present to you for the first time, Mr. and Mrs. Caleb and Emily Cooper."
The congregation erupted. Rice. Confetti. Cheers. I took Emily's hand and we walked back up the aisle, past the pews of aunts and uncles and church elders who had watched us grow from children into this. Past Lucy, standing as bridesmaid in a modest blush gown that had clearly been altered to show more cleavage than her mother would have approved of. She winked at me as we passed.
I felt the blush climb my neck. My face burned like I had been caught in a floodlight.
Outside the church, the photographer arranged us in endless configurations. Emily and me. Emily and me and the bridesmaids. Emily and me and the groomsmen. Emily and me and both families. Emily and me and Pastor Mitchell, who kept a hand on my shoulder and told me, with absolute sincerity, "You are a blessed man, Caleb. A truly blessed man. To find such a pure young woman in this day and age, that is a gift from the Lord Himself."
"Thank you, Pastor," I managed.
Lucy, ten feet away, muffled a snicker behind her bouquet. I shot her a look that said, not here. She raised an eyebrow that said, how much.
The reception hall was a converted barn, strung with fairy lights and burlap and all the rustic nonsense Emily's mother had pinned to a Pinterest board. A three-tiered cake stood in the corner, white buttercream with gold accents. The DJ played acoustic covers of songs I did not know. Champagne flowed, and the dance floor filled with my mother attempting a two-step with Emily's father.
I stood at the head table, watching, a glass sweating in my hand. Emily was across the room, laughing with her bridesmaids, her face flushed with joy.
Then Lucy leaned toward her and whispered something. Emily's smile flickered. She glanced at me, quickly, and then back at Lucy. A nod.
They slipped away, hand in hand, through the crowd and toward the side door that led to the catering prep room.
I told myself it was nothing. Lipstick. A button. A nervous breakdown. I took a sip of champagne and stared at the cake.
Five minutes passed. Ten. The toasts were starting soon, and Emily was not here. I scanned the crowd, my jaw tight.
Then she reappeared, alone, sliding through the dancers toward me. Her cheeks were pink, her lips redder than before, her hair a touch mussed. She wore that same serene smile.
"Sorry," she breathed, pressing herself against me. "Lucy needed help with something."
"Everything okay?"
"Everything's wonderful." She pulled my head down and kissed me, deep and open-mouthed, right there in front of my grandmother, who clucked and looked away.
And I tasted it.
Salt. Sweet. A weight on my tongue that had no business being in my mouth. It coated her lips and her tongue, smeared from the seam of her mouth down to the tip of my chin. I knew that taste. I had watched it. I had licked it from my own palm after a dozen lonely nights.
I pulled back, my heart hammering. "Emily."
"Shh." She pressed a finger to my lips. "It's practice. For the wedding night. Lucy said you'd like it."
Something hot and terrible twisted in my gut. I glanced at the catering prep room door. Lucy stood there, leaning against the frame, a champagne flute in her hand, a smile on her face that was pure oil and honey.
"She's taking such good care of us," Emily said. There was semen on her breath and I was hard as a rock.
The garter toss was announced. The DJ called for all single men to gather. I was not single anymore, but the tradition called for the groom to remove the bride's garter, and I knelt before Emily in front of the entire reception, my hands shaking as I reached up her gown.
She was wet. I felt it as my fingers brushed her inner thigh. Warm and slick, a liquid that was not her own, still cooling against her flushed skin. My hand froze. My fingers brushed the line of it, a thick, creamy stream that ran from the dark heat between her legs down to her knee.
Emily looked down at me, eyes bright, lips parted. She knew what I was feeling. She knew exactly what I was touching.
"Go on," she whispered.
I slid my fingers up. The garter was around her mid-thigh, over the cum that coated her skin. I hooked it, pulled it down, and held it up to the crowd in a shaking fist.
The single men cheered. My father laughed. My mother beamed.
The garter in my hand was soaked through. It dripped.
I took Emily's hand and led her from the floor, away from the cameras and the laughter, toward the corridor that led to the bridal suite. She came willingly, tripping on the hem of her gown.
The door clicked closed behind us. The party continued somewhere beyond the walls, muffled now, distant.
Emily turned to me, still smiling. Her white dress was soiled at the hem. Her thighs were sticky. She reached up and cupped my cheek.
"Happy wedding day, husband."
I looked at her, and I saw everything. The girl who had prayed beside me at youth camp. The girl who had promised to wait. The girl who had lied to Pastor Mitchell and her father and two hundred witnesses while a stranger's cum cooled between her legs.
And I loved her.
I loved her so goddamn much it hurt.
"You taste like him," I heard myself say. The words came out rough, raw.
Emily tilted her head. "Do you like it?"
The question hung in the air. The whole room held its breath with me, the golden light from the window casting our shadows long across the floor.
My answer did not come from my brain. It came from somewhere deeper.