Chapter 71: An Ordinary Wedding

-- SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 2009 (ONE MONTH LATER) --

“Seven. Robber,” Bert stated matter-of-factly as he reached across the table to take hold of the black wooden piece.

“Dammit, there goes my city,” I muttered with a sigh, staring at my spread of eight cards. In the end I kept two grain, a clay, and a sheep, figuring that if my 8-Rock with a city and a settlement rolled again I’d get my three rocks back.

Bert smirked. “Told you to buy a development card last turn.”

“There are only two of us. The probability of a seven rolling before it was my turn again was minimal compared to a three or four-person game.”

“All evidence to the contrary.” Bert shook his head and gestured at the dice showing a four and a three. “You do realize this game isn’t really meant for only two players. Whoever roads off the most territory always wins.”

“I’m about to prove you wrong.”

“Not after I do this.” Bert dropped the robber onto my 8-Rock with a city and a settlement. “Now you’re never gonna get your city. Shuffle.”

I sighed and started shuffling.

“This is pathetic, dude,” Bert sighed. “The epic Big Ben Bachelor Party ends with the two of us playing Settlers by ourselves?”

I shrugged. “Did you not enjoy yourself today? Brunch, golf with the boys, a big steak dinner, and then drinking at the bar?”

“That stuff was fun, sure. I mean, I didn’t really know ninety percent of those dudes, and you spent a lot of time catching up with your old high school friends. But it was fine,” Bert hedged. “I just thought...”

“Thought what? That we’d end with a big orgy?”

“Well...” His voice trailed off before he gave me a sheepish grin and finished, “Kinda, yeah.”

“I told you never to get jaded or take that stuff for granted.”

“True, true.”

“Who would we even have an orgy with? All the girls we care about are together in Napa right now,” I pointed out.

“Getting drunk. Taking mud baths. Mmm ... drunk, horny, and covered in mud...” Bert’s eyes unfocused for a bit.

I snapped my fingers in front of his face to get him to sit up and refocus. “Get your mind out of the gutter.”

“But ... why? My mind rather enjoys being in the gutter.”

I chuckled and shook my head.

“Besides, I’m pretty sure John Kwong and Jeff Lee are having an orgy right now,” Bert complained. “You saw the gorgeous woman who picked them up after dinner. Maybe we shoulda gone with those guys!”

“John brought extra women with him who aren’t friends with Adrienne,” I explained. “The gorgeous woman who picked them up is Evania, his new personal valet, and I don’t think Adrienne even met her before today.”

Bert shot me a surprised look. “And you don’t have any hot female friends who wouldn’t be at Adrienne’s bachelorette party?”

“Like who? Every female friend of mine in the entire Bay Area is also friends with Adrienne.”

“What about outside of the Bay Area? Like your old high school friends.”

“Adrienne and I went to the same high school.”

“Oh. Right.”

“The short answer is: No, I seriously don’t have any female friends who aren’t also Adrienne’s friend or otherwise at that massive party they’re terming a ‘bachelorette party’.” I smirked. “On the bright side, at least you know they’re not having an orgy, either.”

“That is categorically not true,” Bert retorted with a smirk. “Lynne texted me this photo.”

Arching an eyebrow, I leaned forward as Bert pulled his phone out of his pocket, fiddled with the screen, and then turned it around to face me. The most recent text from Lynne read: The girls are helping me lactate!

It was followed by a photo of the pretty brunette winking at the camera while taking a selfie ... and she wasn’t wearing a shirt. That said, Bert wasn’t showing me his wife’s tits or anything like that. Each beautiful bare breast was blocked from the camera’s view by a girl’s head ... evidently suckling on one of the aforementioned beautiful bare breasts.

I frowned. “Well I meant that at least you could be sure they didn’t bring any dicks to their party. As for the girl-on-girl stuff, well ... that photo doesn’t necessarily mean they’re having an orgy. It could be the girls are just messing around a bit. I know for a fact that some of those girls are a hundred percent straight.”

Bert snorted. “Like who? Certainly not any of our female friends.”

“Old high school friends like Megan and Cassidy.”

Just then, my phone dinged with an incoming text message from Adrienne. I pulled it out of my pocket, unlocked the screen, and then furrowed my eyebrows in bewilderment. The text read: Freckls trned into a WILD 1!

A moment later, a photo appeared on screen, this one showing a downward view of an absolutely incredible, one-of-a-kind rack in a lacy bra that could only belong to my soon-to-be-wife...

... and the familiar freckled face of Cassidy O’Leary smiling up at the camera from between my Tigress’s thighs, a pink tongue extended to lap at Adrienne’s wet pussy.

“Holy-fucking-shit they ARE having an orgy!” I exclaimed with wide eyes.

Bert leaned over to look at my screen, craning his head around to get a better view. “Isn’t that Cassidy?” he asked for clarification.

“I stand corrected.”

“Dude, we are in the WRONG city right now!”

I laughed, put away my phone, and shook my head. “It’s just one night, man. Let your wife and all the other girls enjoy themselves. Bachelorette parties don’t happen every day.”

“Neither do bachelor parties. At least at my bachelor party, my best buddy got laid.”

I rolled my eyes, pulled my phone back out, and muttered, “Fine. If you wanna get laid so badly, we’ll get you laid.”

“No, no, I’m just kvetching,” Bert cut me off and waved away my phone before I could even unlock it. “If this is how you wanna end your bachelor party, this is how we’ll end it. Two guys... not getting laid ... or watching titties bounce at a strip club, or in their living room, or any titties of any kind.”

“If all you care about is bouncing titties, we can switch to Xbox and play DOA:X2.”

Bert waggled his head. “That’s ... not a bad idea. Would at least be more fun than this.”

I held up my shuffled hand. “Just take a card.”

At random, Bert plucked away my sheep.

I promptly flipped my soldier card, which gave me two victory points for largest army. I moved the robber to his 6-Clay to get it off my resource hex. I then rolled an 8 on the dice, giving me my three rocks back. Building a city and flipping over my University victory point, I dropped my cards down and called, “Game.”

Bert blinked at me in shock. “Dude!”

I shrugged. “Bouncing titties on Xbox?”

Playing Dead or Alive: Xtreme 2 was marginally more fun than 2-player Settlers, but only marginally. Jiggling digital boobs are only fun to look at up to a certain point. And for two guys used to living with ridonkulously beautiful babes like the special girls in our lives, that “certain point” arrived pretty quickly.

In the end, we wound up seated on the big couch in front of the TV with the space of a single cushion between us, drinking beer and watching the last college football game of the evening. We went long periods without speaking, and after one such extended period of silence, Bert sat up straight and cleared his throat.

“Sorry I’m not being more entertaining tonight,” he muttered apologetically.

I blinked and glanced over at him. “Hmm?”

With his beer bottle in hand, Bert gestured between himself and the TV. “It’s your last night before getting married. This is the capper to Big Ben’s Epic Bachelor Party.”

I shook my head. “Don’t overthink it, dude. I’m sitting here by choice, and there’s honestly no one else in the world I’d rather be with right now.”

“That is categorically untrue,” Bert retorted with a smirk. “Adrienne, Dawn, Summer, Sasha--”

“All of whom are currently enjoying Adrienne-Fucking-Dennis’s Epic Bachelorette Party that will almost certainly devolve into something that sets civilization back a few centuries for a ten-mile radius,” I interrupted. “The girls are exactly where they need to be. And I’m exactly where I need to be.”

“Sitting on a couch, drinking beer, watching a college football game featuring teams neither of us gives a shit about, with me?”

“At the end of the day, you’re the one guy in my life who stuck around. Despite all the drama. Despite all the jealousy. You’re still here. You’ve continued to be my friend.” I gave him a sincere smile. “Dawn’s serving as my ‘best man’ tomorrow - my best woman, really. So when it comes to Y-chromosomes, you’re my best buddy, dude. You’re my best man, man.”

Bert grinned, and he met my fist with a bump when I extended it out to him. “That means a lot to me.”

“I’m serious. It’s not that I set out to live my life with so few guys in it. You’ve met a bunch of my high school friends: we had a fairly even balance of guys and girls. But I had friendships with all of them that pre-dated sex and romance and all the drama that comes with those things. Once I got to college, my relationships all revolved around the girls in my life, except for you. The only guys I ever really interacted with were the boyfriends of girls I knew, and I never really had the opportunity to make other male friends.”

“Most guys resented you for attracting all the female attention.”

I raised my eyebrows. “And you didn’t?”

“Shit, I did too, at least at times.” Bert shrugged. “Everywhere we went, I felt invisible. You were like the sun, blinding girls so they couldn’t see anything except for you. You don’t know what it’s like to feel like the invisible nerd, watching the popular guys get all the girls.”

“Sure I do. I told you I was a short, underdeveloped little kid who hadn’t yet gotten his growth spurt. I was the ‘nice guy’, the ‘unthreatening guy’ that girls went out with on practice dates because they knew I’d never push them. And then when they felt brave enough to try dating a real guy, I was immediately forgotten.”

“At least you went out on practice dates. My very first date ever was with Robin freshman year.”

I chuckled and shook my head. “I still remember the way you looked in those ridiculous Prince Charming tights.”

Bert rolled his eyes. “Not my first date.”

“I know.” I laughed again. “I just remember the tights.”

“Still can’t believe you got to wear actual pants with your costume.”

I shrugged. “We were at my house. Easy to change.”

Bert shook his head and sighed. “You certainly weren’t an invisible, underdeveloped nerd anymore by the time I met you. Dawn was your best friend and Adrienne was your girlfriend. Some things never change, I suppose, as we’ve now come full circle to your wedding. I guess the point is: I only ever knew you as a real Prince Charming who’d always had hot girls eating out of the palm of your hand right from the jump. I envied you, sure, but it was just the way of the world. You were Big Ben, living in a house with Dayna and Brandi and surrounded by all their hot friends. You’re the reason why I ever met Lynne: the best thing that ever happened to me. So at the end of the day, I can never resent you for simply being yourself any more than I can resent gravity for keeping my feet on the ground.”

“And that’s why you stuck around?”

Bert smirked. “You were my ticket to the ball. I would’ve never gotten into that first house party by myself, meeting girls like Felicia and Brandi and Lynne. First time I ever saw two girls kissing each other was when Julie Carpenter did a chocolate body shot off Kerri Trainor’s belly button and then shoved her tongue into Kerri’s mouth. First time I ever saw a girl’s naked tits was when Dayna flashed the crowd. Wildest night of my life and I promised myself I’d stick around you if only to get more opportunities like that, and I did! I started dating Robin and lost my virginity.”

“You got together with Robin entirely on your own. I had nothing to do with it.”

“I wouldn’t have even been in Robin’s orbit if it wasn’t for you. She was Dawn’s high school friend in the first place, and much as I hate to admit it, one of the reasons she even wanted to get together with me in the first place was because she thought she didn’t have a chance in hell of bagging you. As Gwen so crassly put it one time, Robin and I ‘both wore glasses’.”

I frowned at that.

“You needed a wingman that first time you visited Carter Sheridan’s mansion, and I wound up in a crazy-hot threesome with Nikki and Tasha.”

The names didn’t ring a bell, but I shrugged and nodded.

“The Swingers Game with Dawn and Gwen. The Tri-Delt BJ party and meeting Esther. Basketball with the girls. June. Kim. The Tri-Delts. Chocolate and Cream. Bingo 69. Emma. Your freaking engagement party.” Bert smirked and shook his head. “Believe me, I’ve never complained about being the Sex God’s sidekick. And I’ve told you before how thankful I am that I met you that fateful first day of freshman year.”

“Good to know.”

“And above all, thank you for introducing me to Lynne. Best thing that ever happened to me. The Great Love of My Life, my wife, and any day now the mother of my baby girl.”

“I really am happy for you both.”

Bert smiled and stared off for a minute into the middle distance. But then he blinked, fished out his phone, and called up that photo of Lynne holding two girls’ heads to her bare boobs again. He then smirked and shook his head while putting the phone away, adding, “Compared to everything you’ve done for me, I honestly don’t think I’ve done anything for you save for not walking away.”

“Not walking away is kind of a big deal for me. If you think about it, you’re the only one in my life who’s never walked away from me. My high school friends moved on with their own lives. Gwen and Robin moved to Texas. Dawn, Adrienne, and Sasha all took extended sabbaticals away from Berkeley.” I chuckled. “From a certain point of view, you’ve been my ‘constant’.”

Bert snorted and waved me off.

“Whenever I was at my lowest amidst all my romantic dramas, I always knew you’d be ready and willing to hold out an Xbox controller to me. When I needed a wingman for that first trip to Carter’s, I knew I could count on you. Tri-Delt BJ party? You were my very first phone call. Chocolate and Cream, who’s the one guy in the world I can trust? My buddy Bert. Who will protect my family secret and treat my own baby sister with the respect she deserves? You.” I gestured at the TV and around the room. “And when all the girls in my life are enjoying themselves for one crazy night together with no dicks allowed, who’s the one guy in the world I want to hang out with?”

Bert smiled when I left that question rhetorical and took a swig of my beer. “Thanks for the vote of confidence, but this is why I’m apologizing for not being more entertaining tonight.”

I shook my head. “Don’t need entertainment. It’s my last night before getting married and quite honestly, I don’t want to deal with shit anymore. My life up until this point has been full of way more drama and ‘entertainment’ than any human being deserves to go through, and I’m just trying to cross the finish line in one piece, y’know? I took it easy playing golf today because I don’t wanna pull a back muscle the night before I’ve gotta satisfy Adrienne on her wedding night. I don’t want to visit a strip club because I have no need to ‘look but don’t touch’ with random girls I’ll never see again only showing me their tits because they’re paid to do so. I don’t even need to get laid tonight because I know I’m better off resting up for the exertions that await me tomorrow. Some people see their wedding as the romantic centerpiece of their life story--”

“--and other people see their wedding as the final exam they have to merely endure in order to get it over with so that THEN they can at last move forward with their happily wedded life,” Bert finished for me.

“Yes! Exactly. Thank you.” I sighed and gave Bert a rueful grin.

“Pretty much felt like that for me too,” Bert admitted. “At least MY wedding was a pretty low-key deal at a golf course, and even then it felt like more stress than it was worth. I couldn’t wait to have the whole thing over with already.”

“It was a ceremony more important for your friends and family to attend and celebrate than it was for you and Lynne.”

“Exactly!”

“Same for me, and this is NOT a low-key deal at a golf course.” I shook my head. “This is a big fucking deal for everyone else around me. For my world-famous supermodel wife--”

“She’s not your wife yet.”

“For my world-famous supermodel fiancée,” I started over, “this will be her big public wedding for the cameras and the media to immortalize the occasion for posterity and probably give her brand a big boost in sales. I’m just grateful she was able to pull this all together in a month once we decided to just fucking get it over with. But if you couldn’t already tell from my slip of the tongue, Adrienne’s already my wife in my heart. As far as I’m concerned, our souls were enjoined down on Marshall’s Beach more than a month ago when I was soaking wet, got down on one knee, and asked her to believe in us despite Dawn’s pregnancy, and she told me, ‘I do.’ The rest of this shit is just for the cameras.”

“So glad I shaved.”

“For my friends and family, this is finally putting to rest one of the most hotly debated topics of the past several years.”

“‘Who’s Ben actually gonna marry?’” Bert quoted. “Lynne said she always knew it’d be Adrienne. But full disclosure: I’d been betting on Dawn.”

I snorted and shrugged. “I feel like most bets were on Dawn. Anyways ... this whole thing just turned into such a crazy circus. I wouldn’t have thought so many people would be able to drop everything and turn out for a random September wedding with less than four weeks’ notice. But I just spent all day with a bunch of high school guys I haven’t seen since graduation and my billionaire employer whose wife happens to be a close personal friend of Adrienne’s. I had to hang out and chat with the boyfriends of my sisters while not all of them know that I’m regularly fucking their girlfriends.”

“Awkward...”

“So yeah, I really didn’t need to have a big, epic bachelor party with a bunch of dudes I don’t regularly hang out with anyways. Just me and you, dude, counting down the hours until I can finally get all this shit over with, y’know? You’re my buddy. You’re my bro. You’re my best man.”

“I’m honored. Really,” he told me sincerely.

Just then, my phone dinged with an incoming text message. Bert’s phone dinged a moment later, but I was already checking my screen as I muttered in surprise, “From Lynne? Why would she be texting me?”

It was a photo text and the answer to my question. My eyes got BIG and my mouth gaped open, although I didn’t actually say anything.

Bert, on the other hand, gawked at his phone and exclaimed loudly, “Holy SHIT.”

Lynne had texted us both so I figured Bert was looking at the same image as me. There were nine girls in the photo ... no ten ... all of them more or less naked. I mean, some of the girls were wearing stockings and one was actually wearing a black teddy, but most tits were hanging out and several crotches were on full display, presenting both nether holes to the camera.

Adrienne was at the center top of the landscape-oriented photo, staring straight at the camera with a self-satisfied smirk. She reclined back against the front of the sofa in the big house she’d rented up in Napa, with a girl on either side of her, each licking the erect pink nipples of her massive, mouth-watering mammaries. Redheaded Summer was holding Adrienne’s right breast with one hand and licking the nipple at the same time, leaning on one side so that I had a perfect view of her crotch. Dawn knelt on all fours sucking on Adrienne’s left boob, and Penny - wearing the aforementioned black teddy - sat right behind my best friend, licking Dawn’s ass while hand-pumping a Ben Junior in and out of Dawn’s soaking wet snatch. And then Sasha snuggled up against Penny’s back at the right side of the frame, big tits hanging forward just barely in view, with her left hand fingering her girlfriend’s clit.

While Adrienne laired in the center of the picture with her knees up and spread to the sides, I couldn’t actually see her crotch; not with two heads in the way. A blonde with long hair knelt on all fours, actively performing cunnilingus on my fiancée while her ass was front and center along the lower edge of the photo, showing off her crinkled anus and juicy wet slit. Even without seeing her face, I’d recognize that ass anywhere: it was DJ. And Brooke was face-down on DJ’s left side, ready to take over rugmunching duties.

In the upper left of the photo, June knelt behind Summer with her index and middle fingers crammed into the redhead’s gaping asshole, but her gaze had been drawn to a wicked hot sixty-nine on the left side, almost out of the frame. Amber was flat on her back, her face in full-view as she extended a long tongue through the wet furrow of the pink pussy above her. Whichever girl was on top of her was mostly out of view, only her ass and thighs fitting into the frame. But was that red hair along her naked back? Probably Kady. She would make the most sense. And yet I knew I’d recognize Kady’s tight runner’s ass anywhere, and that certainly wasn’t it.

Could it be ... Cassidy?!?

“Welp...” Bert muttered, locking his phone and shoving it back into his pocket. “Nothing to see there, obviously.”

I smirked and held up my own phone. “If you really, really need, I can still get you laid. I won’t mind.”

“What about you?”

I shrugged. “I’ll survive a night without getting my dick wet. But--”

“Just stop right there. After that little speech you made about me being your best bro, I’m not going anywhere. Besides, it’s one thing to mess around when my wife is right by my side encouraging me. But I’m not gonna hook up with some random girl you set up for me just because. I’ll be fine.”

I shrugged, took one more lingering look at the photo, and then slid my phone back into my pocket.

“Meanwhile, you and I can do what we do best.” Bert smirked and then promptly leaned forward. A moment later he popped back up holding the two Xbox controllers. “What do you say we beat the crap out of something together?”

I grinned. “Dude, it’s like you can read my mind!”

-- SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 2009 --

The Chapel of Our Lady at the San Francisco Presidio was a charmingly rustic and yet elegantly modern venue featuring exquisite hand-painted rafters crisscrossing beneath the gable roof, Mission-style chandeliers, stained-glass walls, and a soaring arched window behind the altar. It was also an exceptionally popular wedding site that usually had a two-year waitlist and required a minor miracle to book on such short notice.

The Chapel was not a huge building, not the kind of grand cathedral I’d expected Adrienne to pick for her glamourous supermodel wedding. It felt intimate, and even a little cozy, although with a max capacity of 200 it wasn’t “small”. I would’ve married Adrienne anywhere in the entire world in any location that struck her fancy, but she chose a mid-size venue not far from home. It felt like a place for a family wedding, which suited me just fine.

Long before the ceremony was scheduled to start, I stood outside the chapel wearing casual clothes, my arms crossed over my chest while I stared at the building, lost in thought but breathing hard and a bit agitated.

“Chillax, man. We’re in the home stretch now,” Bert remarked and then took a deep breath as if modeling the appropriate behavior for me to follow.

“Just a few more hours to go and it’ll all be over,” Dawn said reassuringly, one arm wrapped around my lower back.

“But it’s not too late to back out if you don’t wanna go through with it,” my third ‘groomsman’ added.

“June!” Kim scolded.

“What?” June looked around at all four of us. “I’m just saying he still has the option. I’m not the only one who thinks Ben looks a little green around the gills, am I? If he wants to walk away, now’s the time to do it before we all have to get dressed in our monkey suits and go walk out in front of the cameras.”

Kim rolled her eyes and sighed.

“I have no interest in walking away,” I assured everyone. “I love Adrienne more now than I’ve ever loved her in my life, and we ARE getting married in another hour or so. This is simple stage-fright. I’m just feeling a few knots in my shoulders and a few butterflies in my stomach, that’s all.”

My stomach promptly gurgled on command.

“I told you to eat more at breakfast,” Dawn chided gently. “If you don’t have enough calories in you, you’re liable to get dizzy and pass out in front of the altar.”

“Can we just hook me up with an IV drip or something?” I muttered wearily. “Seriously, I don’t know if I can keep food down right now.”

“Try. Here.” Kim opened her purse and pulled out a green squeezable applesauce pouch.

I made a face. “I’m not stealing from BJ’s emergency stash.”

Kim rolled her eyes. “You need the sugar right now before you pass out. Now drink it.”

I sighed as Kim unscrewed the cap and handed the pouch to me. I sucked the applesauce down in less than three seconds and then handed back the wrinkled aluminum. I felt better, but everyone could still tell I wasn’t quite whole.

“When was the last time he got laid?” Bert asked with a touch of concern. “With all the girls out for last night’s bachelorette party, now is NOT the time for him to be going into withdrawal tremors.”

“Of course not. Summer and I relieved the pressure this morning,” Dawn informed him.

June checked her watch. “If he’s due for another pressure release, I’d be happy to bend over the nearest bathroom sink or something.”

“Thank you for the offer, but I’m fine,” I told her with a hand palm-out.

June shrugged. “Just trying to be a good ‘groomsman’.”

Bert snorted, which got me to turn in his direction. He quickly waved both hands. “Hey, don’t look at me. I don’t recall signing up for that.”

I rolled my eyes, put my left hand into his shoulder, and rather violently shoved him three steps away.

“Hey...” Dawn soothed, sidling back up to me and slipping her hand into mine. “Let’s go for a walk, huh?”

I turned back and momentarily lost myself in the liquid pools of my soulmate’s sky-blue eyes. She smiled up at me with an expression of infinite patience and love and squeezed my hand, and I felt my heartrate start to slow down a bit as if she were somehow able to physically rotate a dimmer switch controlling my level of stress.

Nodding slowly, I took a deep breath and let out a long exhalation. “A walk sounds nice.”

Dawn smiled and squeezed my hand again. “Let’s go.” She turned to lead me away.

“You all gotta start changing and doing your makeup in thirty minutes,” Kim warned. “Don’t dilly-dally.”

“Yes, Mom,” I drawled over my shoulder as Dawn guided me away from the chapel.

Hand-in-hand, my best friend and I walked past the Inn next door, which housed a first-floor suite where my “groomsmen” and I could change and get ready for the ceremony. We also passed within sight of the historic Funston House, a separate cottage away from the main building that served as both a dressing area for Adrienne and her bridesmaids today as well as our wedding night lodging.

I found myself staring after the Funston House, wondering what Adrienne was doing or thinking right now. Did she have the same knots in her shoulders or the same butterflies in her stomach that I did? Did she feel green around the gills like me? I rather hoped she was doing much better than I was, actually looking forward to the ceremony with excitement for it to be everything she had ever dreamed of instead of a final exam to be merely endured.

“Breathe, Ben. Breathe.” Dawn squeezed my hand again.

We were walking down a narrow, paved walkway winding its way through the grove. Pine, cypress, and eucalyptus trees provided us with shade from the sun and shielding from the coastal breeze as we walked in a vaguely northeastern direction, away from any buildings.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, looking over at me with obvious concern.

“Nothing’s wrong.”

“Something’s wrong. You can’t hide this stuff from me. This is more than just stage fright.”

“I’m just anxious to get the whole thing over with, you know?”

“That’s part of it, sure,” Dawn conceded. But then she squeezed my hand again, adding, “but that’s not the whole picture. What is it?”