Chapter 7: Bridget

“When you get your pure-as-pure girlfriend into bed, will you wait for her?” Bridget asked. “Or will you take her without a thought for anything but your own lust? I wouldn’t advise that. I’ll tell you why.”

And this is the story she told:

The reception finally over, they fled together under a shower of rice. Jim handed her into the passenger seat of the Reo and climbed into the driver’s seat. Fred already had the crank in his hand. At the third rotation, the engine caught. Fred threw the crank into the car behind them as Jim drove away.

‘Mrs. James Powell,’ Bridget thought. She was Mrs. James Powell, and would be for the rest of her life.

Bridget, Jim thought, was finally his. Bridget Ryan had been the prettiest girl in town, and now she was Bridget Powell; and she was the prettiest woman in town and his wife. He’d wanted her for years, and now he had her. Jim parked in the street in front of the house. With Harriet and Mildred still cleaning up the reception at the club, he took Bridget’s coat himself. He hung it in the hall closet with his. He led her upstairs.

“My room,” he said opening the door. He was glad to see that Mildred had cleaned it since he’d dressed for the wedding. “Our room, now.” He struck a match and lit two gas mantles. The light dispersed the gloom of dusk from the room.

Bridget looked around. It was a very nice room, decorated with Yale pennants to show Jim’s college experience. It was neat and clean, but she thought the bed was intrusive. It took up much of the floor space and more of the space in her thoughts.

“Don’t you want to get out of your things?” Jim asked. He took off his own tuxedo jacket and started to untie his tie.

“Where can I? I mean I need help.” A wedding dress wasn’t the sort of thing one could put on or take off by oneself, to say nothing of the corset.

“This is your room, now, dear. Use it. And I’ll help if you tell me what to do. Mildred -- Harriet for that matter -- is still dealing with the remains of the reception.”

Bridget didn’t have another choice. Her mother had helped her on with the wedding dress, but she wasn’t here. She wouldn’t be here. Bridget couldn’t imagine asking Mrs. Powell for help, even if she had gotten home yet. It would have to be Jim. She turned her back and described the string of clasps behind her back. Jim figured out the laces of the corset himself. She could get the rest off herself. She wondered where she could go to do that.

Jim unhooked the white dress which was her promise of purity. Then he unlaced the corset. All that protected her smooth back from his eyes was her camisole. He kissed the back of her neck. He took one side of the dress in his hand and walked around her, pulling it lightly. When he got where he was facing her, he pulled the other shoulder of the dress forward. The top of the dress came off her into his hands. Without the support from the top, the skirt finally dropped. She stepped out of the gown and he hung it in the closet.

“This half will be yours,” he said. That half of the closet held a half dozen hangers and a wedding gown.

“Where can I go to change?” Bridget asked. For that matter, where was her trousseau with the fancy nightgown she had bought?

“Change here. This is your room now.” This was hers, but -- more important -- she was his. And he wanted her to be his in all ways. Jim wanted that so much that his dick ached. He returned to her front and pulled gently on the shoulders of the corset. The corset was visible to her waist, where there were petticoats around it.

“The petticoats,” she said.

“Then take them off.”

Bridget didn’t have a choice. She removed the petticoats and brought them to the closet. She draped them over the crossbars of two hangers. Finally, she removed the corset and draped it over a chair. She turned to him in her camisole with her face burning.

Jim barely noticed her face. All his attention was on the breasts sticking out against the camisole. He could nearly make out their shape through the thin linen. There were two points which had to be her nipples. He crossed the space between himself and his bride to kiss her. When his lips met hers, his hands rose to cup her breasts through the cloth.

“Jim,” she said. Why had she agreed to this marriage? Why had she wanted it so fiercely?

“Yes, my darling.” He turned away to remove his cufflinks and studs. Then he hung his shirt up in what was now his side of the closet. “Let me help you off with those shoes.”

She didn’t see any way to refuse. She sat on the bed, and he took off her shoes. Then he reached up and removed her garters and stockings. He would get the rest of her clothes off; she knew he would. She’d known that this was part of marriage -- known even before her mother had the talk with her two nights ago. What she’d seen as one part, even as an exciting part, looked like almost the entire thing now. And it looked more frightening than exciting.