Chapter 4: Matrimony

1965

The fall and winter proved very educational to Mary Tomasino. Tommy Caparelli took her instructions to heart and proceeded to teach her everything he and his wife Karen had taught each other. He also made sure she knew that she was to tell him whenever he was doing something right and when she was enjoying an orgasm. There was nothing quite as exciting to Tommy as hearing Mary telling him, “I’m cumming! I’m cumming! Don’t stop! Don’t stop! Fuck me! Fuck me!” That just spurred him to ever greater efforts.

Mary loved the lessons. When Roberto seduced her and ended up between her legs, the only thing she learned was that she enjoyed sex. He didn’t teach her about positions or pleasuring herself or another person. The only reason she enjoyed what was happening was that she was inherently easily aroused and highly orgasmic. When Tommy began teaching her, she just went crazy. It also didn’t hurt that Tommy seemed to be significantly more masculine than Roberto. It wasn’t something she had ever measured with her first lover, but Tommy seemed to reach places Roberto never got to.

Tommy taught her how to give him a blowjob; the lesson was so successful she gave him a second immediately afterwards. That led to sixty-nine, and with Tommy’s talent at cunnilingus, that proved a definite favorite. He also taught her almost every position possible, and Mary enjoyed them all. She began collecting a few nightgowns, first given to her by Tommy for Christmas and New Year’s, and then more for Valentine’s Day.

Mary began spending as much time as possible with her boyfriend. Most weekends were spent at his apartment, usually with Herschel and Joey. Sundays were usually at one of their parents’ homes, and their parents began quietly wondering when Tommy would pop the question.

That occurred at the end of March. Herschel was a year old, and like her parents had joked, now the two boys were walking and usually in different directions. Still the last Saturday of the month, the boys had been put into the crib, and Tommy and Mary were lazing in bed, resting after a vigorous doggy-style fuck that had left them both panting and smiling.

Tommy was lying on his back, and Mary was curled up next to him, her head on his chest. “I love you,” she told him. It wasn’t the first time she had said that.

“I love you, too,” he said. Mary squirmed against him, hugging him and looking forward to a second round. She had lost track of her orgasms during their first fuck. He leaned towards her and kissed her. “Mary, I want to ask you a question.”

“The answer is yes. I will suck off our juices and get you ready for whatever position you want.”

Tommy laughed loudly. “No! This is a real question!”

She looked up at him. “What?”

“Will you marry me?”

It took her a second to realize what he was asking. “What?”

“Will you marry me?”

“What? Yes ... I mean ... really? You want to marry me?”

He smiled. “You just said it. You love me and I love you. Let’s make it official. I want to marry you and make you my wife. Please.”

“Even with my ... history?”

“Oh, Christ, that again? I don’t care about that! I love you and want to be with you all the time. I want you here every day and every night! Will you marry me?”

“Oh my God! Yes! Yes! Yes!” Conversation ended at that point, with Mary crawling on top of Tommy, kissing him repeatedly, and mounting her now-fiancé for another spirited session. They would see their parents the next day to go for approvals and blessings. Amusingly, both mothers said the same thing. “This is wonderful! Now I have two grandsons!”

Tommy also said the same thing each time. “God help them both!”

Things got sticky when Angela asked her daughter what kind of wedding she wanted. Mary got very nervous and ducked the question, saying she hadn’t thought about it.

Tommy noticed her hesitation and asked her about it privately before he left to go home. “What’s up, honey?”

“We’re probably going to have to get married at the courthouse.”

“Why? You don’t want a church wedding?” Both the Caparelli and the Tomasino families were Catholic. A church wedding was a must!

“I can’t get married in a church,” she said.

“Why not?” This sounded crazy.

“I’ve been excommunicated.”

“What?”

It took Mary several minutes to explain it to him, and Tommy said, “Don’t worry about it. Let’s talk about this later, but I am sure we can work this out. Give me a few days to sort it out.”

Sorting it out involved both Mary and Tommy taking the day off on Thursday. He drove over to the Tomasino home just after lunch and dropped Joey off with Mary’s mother, and then he and Mary drove over to Rock City Falls. Mary was nervous as they pulled into the parking lot of St. Joseph’s Roman Catholic Church. “Are you sure about this?” she asked.

“Trust me. I have it on good authority that lightning won’t come down until after we see Father Frank.”

“Tommy!”

“Trust me.” He parked and got out, and waited until Mary joined him. She was holding his hand so tightly he was sure a few fingers would fall off.

Tommy didn’t lead Mary into the church but into the parish office, which was attached to the side. They went down a hallway and turned left into a small office area. A secretary was sitting at a desk typing and looking up at them. “We have an appointment with Father Frank.”

She glanced at a calendar book on her desk. “He’s with somebody right now but I’m sure he’ll be free in a few minutes. Please have a seat.”

“Thank you.” Tommy sat on an old couch and Mary sat next to him. She was very nervous.

Five minutes later an inner door opened, and a woman came out, followed by a man in clerical garb. He was in his mid-thirties, in a black suit with a clerical collar. He smiled at the woman, and she left the office. Then he looked at the secretary. “Your one o’clock is here, Father.”

“So I see. Welcome, Thomas. Come in, please.”

Tommy got to his feet and held his hand out to Mary. She nervously followed her fiancé into the office.

The priest smiled and motioned Tommy and Mary to chairs in front of a desk, and then settled into a swivel chair behind the desk. “Thomas, it is good to see you again. You’ve missed a few Sundays lately. Could this lovely young lady be the cause of that?” he asked, smiling.

Tommy blushed. “Uh, well...”

“That’s a Hail Mary and I expect to see you next Sunday,” he said, smiling. “Who is your friend, and how can I help you?” He turned to Mary and said, “I’m Francis Rossman, but everybody just calls me Father Frank.”

Mary gave him a nervous smile. It was Tommy who said, “Father, this is Mary Tomasino. I asked her to marry me, and she said yes.”

Father Frank smiled broadly. “Congratulations! That is wonderful! I was talking to your mother a week ago and she said you were seeing somebody special, and she thought this might be happening.” He turned to Mary and said, “This is wonderful. Congratulations. I’ve known Tommy and his family since I first came to St. Joe’s ten years ago.”

“Thank you.”

Father Frank turned back to Tommy. “So, how can I and St. Joe’s help you? I’d be happy to marry you.”

“That’s basically it, Father. I went through this once before, so I know at least one of us needs to be baptized and a Catholic, and you know I meet those requirements.”

“Yes, Thomas, I know that. I was so sorry to hear about your wife. Still, God has blessed you with a second chance.” He turned to Mary. “And you, Mary, are you also Catholic?”

“I was.”

Father Frank thought this meant that Mary was lapsed, a condition all too common, but Tommy answered before he could say something. “That’s really why we’re here, Father. Mary has a problem.”

Father Frank turned to her. “Mary?”

Tommy said, “It’s okay, honey. If anybody can help, it’s Father Frank.”

“Mary?”

Mary looked at the floor and said, quietly, “I’ve been excommunicated.”

“What? Why?” Frank Rossman couldn’t remember the last time he had heard of somebody being excommunicated.

It was as if the floodgates opened. “It’s because I’m a sinner, Father. Several years ago, I met a man and, well, I have a little boy now. He’s a year old.”

“And I assume the sacrament of marriage was not involved,” he asked.

Mary lowered her head and began crying. Tommy handed her a tissue from the priest’s desk and said, “Father, Mary was very young, just out of high school. He was rich and fancy and Mary simply didn’t realize what was happening. He lied to her and promised her the moon and the stars and then took off.”

“Is this true, Mary?”

She nodded, still looking down. “Yes.”

“Well, that’s a tragedy, but not that big a tragedy. You are raising your son, I gather, and if Tommy wants to marry you, I am sure you are doing a good job of it. What does this have to do with being excommunicated? I don’t understand.”

She looked up at him and wiped her eyes. “Father Sebastiani wanted me to give the baby up for adoption. He kept telling me I had to put the baby up for adoption and I kept delaying. Finally, I had the baby, and I decided to keep Herschel. He’s my son! I didn’t want strangers raising him! He’s my son!”

Father Frank smiled and nodded but before he could say anything, Mary continued. “So, Father Sebastiani got angry! He ordered me to give up my baby, and when I said no, he held up his cross and declared me excommunicato. He called me a puttana – I don’t know what that means but I guess it’s not very nice – and he said Herschel was il bastardo. That means...”

Father Frank held up his hand. “I know what it means.”

He sighed. Domenico Sebastiani was an old and very conservative priest. He was from Palermo in Sicily and was assigned to St. Elizabeth’s Roman Catholic Church in Saratoga. Father Frank was sure that it was Father Sebastiani’s mission in life to punish sinners. More than once, Father Frank thought that Sebastiani would have been much happier in the 17^th Century during the Thirty Years War, or even earlier, during the Spanish Inquisition, where he would have happily burned witches at the stake, killed Moors and Jews, and tortured Protestants. On the plus side, Sebastiani’s attitudes had led to a slow but steady trickle of parishioners leaving St. Elizabeth’s for other parishes. St. Joe’s had welcomed several families, each of which had resulted in a scurrilous letter to the diocese demanding that Father Frank order the families to return to St. Elizabeth’s or face the wrath of God. Monsignor Simmons, from the Albany Diocese, had once implied that Father Sebastiani was assigned where he could do the least harm.

Excommunication was a whole new level of craziness, even for Sebastiani. It was explicitly against canon law for a parish priest to excommunicate anybody. That was for the diocesan level, or higher. Moreover, while excommunication was a real thing, it was actually a political thing, forcing secular leaders to obey church doctrine. Historically it was much more common for bishops or popes to use excommunication to punish dukes and kings, and that was long in the past. Now it was used to threaten Catholic politicians who wanted to legalize abortion.

Father Frank smiled and reached across the desk and took Mary’s hand. “Well, I really don’t think you’ve been actually excommunicated. We really don’t do a lot of that these days. I am pretty sure I would have heard about it if you had actually been excommunicated.” He smiled and added, “You wouldn’t believe the paperwork involved.”

Mary looked up at him hopefully. “Really?”

“I promise that I will call the diocese and check on this. I’ll call you and Tommy in a day or two.” Monsignor Simmons was going to love this.

“So, we can get married? In a church?”

“Yes. I guarantee it.” Father Frank resisted the urge to laugh. While excommunication was a serious punishment as far as the Church was concerned, getting un-excommunicated didn’t involve much more than some form of penance and forgiveness.

“Really?” Mary excitedly reached over and took Tommy’s hand. “We can get married!”

He smiled and nodded. “We can get married.”

She looked at Father Frank. “What about my wedding gown. I mean, I can’t wear white, right? That’s a sign of virginity. Can I do off-white or beige?”

Father Frank was aware that many of his parishioners these days did not enter matrimony in a state of virtue. He had also sworn an oath of chastity, and while he kept it sacred, he was certainly cognizant that Mary Tomasino was an astonishingly beautiful young woman. He cleared his throat and said, “I think white is more a symbol of purity, and your love for Thomas is very pure. I see no reason why white would not be appropriate.”

“Oh, thank you! Thank you!”

“Now, let me ask you a few questions.”

“Of course, Father,” said Tommy.

“Mary, you said you were Catholic. Were you baptized?”

“Yes, Father, of course.”

“Very good. Do you two plan to adopt each other’s children?”

Mary looked over at her fiancé in confusion before turning back to the priest. “You mean if I would adopt Joey and Tommy would adopt Herschel? Isn’t that, like, automatic?” Tommy looked as confused as she did.

“Ah, well, perhaps in the eyes of the Church, but not so much in the eyes of the law.” Again, he smiled and said, “Just because you get married, it doesn’t mean you automatically adopt the other’s children. There are all sorts of bad movies and television shows about that. What would happen if Thomas were to die, and you hadn’t formally adopted Joseph? Theoretically, one of his relatives could come in and sue for custody.”

Tommy laughed. “Or you could decide to bump me off to inherit my share of the company and cut Joey out of the will!”

“Tommy!” she protested.

Father Frank grinned. “Like I said, there are all sorts of bad movies and TV shows. On the plus side, this is a very common request. All you need to do is find a lawyer who does family law. He can explain it. It’s really nothing more than signing a few forms and getting a judge to sign off on it. It’s very common; we’ve had several instances in our parish. I am sure we could find somebody to help find a lawyer for you.”

“Oh, that would be good.” She turned to Tommy. “You know I love Joey. I promise I’ll take care of him.” Then she grinned. “Even after I bump you off to inherit the company.”

He snorted. “You’ll have to bump off my brothers and sister, too, remember.”

Father Frank asked, “Has your son been baptized? You said his name was Herschel?”

Mary shook her head. “No, Father. Father Sebastiani said he was excommunicated, too.”

The priest quietly sighed. He was going to have a long conversation with Monsignor Simmons. “Perhaps I can baptize your son at the same time as I perform the marriage.”

“That would be wonderful!”

Father Frank smiled. “I think we can solve this problem with nothing more than a phone call or two. When you leave, talk to Mrs. Jenkins about scheduling the wedding. She’s in charge of my schedule.” He lowered his voice and said, conspiratorially, “Let’s just say she’s the boss and I’m the employee.” He stood up and motioned them towards the door. “I’ll be in touch with you both. In the meantime, Mary, I would like to invite you to join us this Sunday. With Thomas, of course, which he said he would do. And think about joining the St. Joe’s community. I think you will like it.”

“Yes, Father. Thank you!”

With that they were ushered out of his office and deposited with the secretary, Mrs. Jenkins. It turned out that every Saturday was taken for the next six months, but if they were interested in a Friday wedding, they could do something in as little as six weeks.

“Can we call you on that?” asked Tommy,

“Just call us Monday thru Thursday, nine to one. And get a marriage license. It’s like changing a diaper. The job isn’t finished until you do the paperwork.”

Mary was ecstatic as they went out to Tommy’s truck. “This is wonderful! Thank you! Thank you! We can get married now!”

“Happy to help out,” he laughed.

“Now, hurry back to your apartment! I want to show you just how much I love you!”

Tommy rolled his eyes. “I’m not sure how appropriate it is to say that while we’re standing in the parking lot of a church, but I’m game if you are. Just how did you plan to thank me?”

“I’m not sure yet but trust me. It is going to take hours, and you are definitely going to enjoy it!”

“I am so going to Hell.”

Thanking Tommy began immediately after Tommy unlocked the apartment and let Mary inside. She was undressing even before he had stepped inside and closed the door. She kept walking, moving into the bedroom, shedding clothing as she went. By the time Tommy got there, she was peeling off her panties and touching herself between her legs to get everything warm and juicy for her fiancé. She eyed him hungrily as he undressed. “Now, how do you want me to say thank you?” she asked. “Anything specific? Tell me and I’ll be as nasty as you want!”

He smiled. “As nasty as I want, huh? Then why are you on the bed and not kneeling in front of me?”

Mary laughed and slipped to the floor. “One blowjob coming right up! Start thinking about what you want me to do next.”

The rest of the afternoon was a non-stop fuckfest for the young couple as Tommy tested Mary on everything he had taught her. They ended up taking a nap for an hour before cleaning up and dressing to retrieve their children. “I think our honeymoon will be epic!” she told him.

“I am going to have to start taking vitamins. I think I’ve created a monster.”

Mary and Tommy went over to the Tomasino house and told her parents that she would be marrying Tommy at his church in Rock City Falls, though she didn’t tell them about her excommunication. That was so awful that she never told them about Father Sebastiani and what he had said to her, though they had guessed something was wrong when she stopped going to church.

Then Angela called Janice and said they needed to get together to start making plans. Harry looked over at Tommy and said, “Abandon hope all ye who enter here. You’re a dead man walking.”

“I’ve been through this once before. My mother did the same thing with Karen’s mother. I think you are being optimistic.”

“Come into the kitchen. We might as well start drinking now.”

The wedding turned out to be considerably simpler than Tommy’s first. The wedding would be in June, supposed to be a lucky month. That gave them not quite three months to sort out the details.

Mary was ruthless about keeping the guest list short. It was for family only, no friends. That limited it to five people on Mary’s side and six on Tommy’s, including the happy couple. Several of the boys would be bringing girlfriends, and three grandparents were still alive on Tommy’s side and two on Mary’s. It would max out at less than two dozen. When Angela pressed Mary on inviting friends, her daughter told her that most of her friends had abandoned her when she became pregnant, and she had cut ties with the remainder when she decided to spend most of her time at home. Sarah Caparelli would be Mary’s Maid of Honor, and Jake and Billy Tomasino would be co-Best Men for Tommy. Angela would let them know when they needed to take leave to come home.