Chapter 1: Wedding Bells

“Well,” Andy Trainor told some of the people at Urbana First while they were waiting to shake the preacher’s hand, “you’ll never see Marilyn Grant again.” They smiled politely at the joke, but nobody was fooled. He would see Marilyn Grant again, and soon -- but not soon enough. He kissed her hungrily on the porch of Zeta house. They were going to spend finals week apart.

Aside from her absence, finals weren’t much of a headache. There were no great surprises on the exams; he had taken no distribution courses and been assigned no papers; he’d gone into the week with solid As in each of the four classes. Andy knew that confidence before you get the grades was always a mistake, but he would have bet money on an A in any of the exams if there had been anyone to bet against him. When he got out of the last one, he showered, changed his clothes from the skin out, and shaved with a blade. Then he called Marilyn. Her last final had been scheduled two hours ahead of his last one.

“Zeta Tau Gamma. Joyce speaking.”

“Hi, Joyce. Could you ask your Grand Big Sister to come to the phone?”

“Hi, Andy. I’ll tell her it’s you.” A pause and then: “Marilyn. It’s Andy on the phone,” in the distance. A longer pause.

“Marilyn Grant speaking.”

“I love you. Your chariot awaits your command.”

“Great! I’ll get the stuff and be downstairs when you are.” And she was. There were two suitcases, one remarkably light, but there was loads of room in the trunk, and there could be more in the back seat if they needed it. They would be driving north rather than take the train. They had a mild kiss on the stairway, a longer kiss in the car before starting, and a longer and wetter kiss in the apartment.

“Have you had lunch?” she asked.

“Lunch can wait.”

“You’re insatiable.” He’d gone from Sunday morning to Friday afternoon without her. Wanting her now wasn’t being insatiable.

“I put clean sheets on the bed. Don’t you want to try them out?” She laughed, but she didn’t push him away. When he had lifted her t-shirt off, she started on his. They’d learned to get their own shoes, but when they were both naked, he opened the closet door and lifted her in his arms. When she put her arms around his neck, he got his left arm under her butt. This way, her breasts were in reach of his mouth. He kissed them and stroked between her labia.

They both watched until she writhed. She hugged him closely, but he still brought his right hand up to hold her between the shoulder blades.

He carried her to the bed while she recovered, then laid her gently on the sheets. He kissed her breasts again, concentrating on one nipple until it was hard between his lips. She stroked her hands down his sides.

“Andy,” she said. She grasped his cock. When he knelt between her legs, she used one hand to spread her labia while the other one guided him between them. He entered her warm slickness slowly, feeling it slide along his shaft until she was hugging all of his cock.

“Darling,” he said. He kissed her hairline.

“Yes,” she said when he began to stroke in and out. He tried, but failed, to hold back. When he pounded into her for the last time and erupted, her climax followed his. He managed to fall to his left, and they lay like that looking into each other’s eyes. Too soon, she got up and donned a robe and apron. Lunch, though, was delicious.

The rest of the weekend was delightful. He got dressed only to do the laundry Saturday. Although she wore the robe often, she didn’t get fully dressed until it was time for them to leave Monday.

She’d stuffed some celery with peanut butter to eat on the drive north. They talked about the next year when they’d sleep in the same bed every night.

“But first,” Marilyn said, “there’s a wedding. Mom’s planning it, but what do you want from the wedding?”

“You!”

“Really. What do you want to be in the ceremony?”

“I haven’t been thinking about the wedding. I’ve been thinking about the marriage. The wedding is just a means to an end. You say that you’ll be my wife until death do us part. The rest of the ceremony doesn’t matter.” Well, it didn’t matter to him. It mattered to Marilyn, and that meant that it mattered. “Most of it is on your family. If you really want something, tell me. I’ll insist on it.”

“You’re sweet. What does your father want?”

“I dunno. He wants it to be in ‘78, and I already said he can’t have that. He offered us a month honeymoon anywhere we wanted. I told him no. Should I have asked you first?”

“Well, my answer would have been no.”

“That’s what I thought. It seemed to me that I already got in Dutch by relaying one of his questions when I knew the answer.”

“And does he want anything else?”

“If he does, he hasn’t told me.”

She told him of the wedding customs she was going to keep, including that he couldn’t see the wedding dress until she walked down the aisle towards him.

Unfortunately, all good things come to an end. Just as their pre-honeymoon in the apartment had come to an end, so did the trip. He backed into her driveway, carried her bags into her house, and gave her a goodbye kiss. Then he went alone to his own house.

Mrs. Bryant gave him a warm welcome and a little snack. He got his stuff upstairs and unpacked before Dad got home.

“Well, how do you feel?” Dad asked.

“Lonely.”

“Patience, my lad. Patience. Rome wasn’t built in a day, nor Romeo married in one. Although, come to think of it, Romeo actually had a quick wedding. He also, though, had a brief marriage. You want yours to last longer, don’t you?”

“Yeah. Marilyn asked what you wanted from the wedding.”

“I’ll give Judy Grant a list of guests. If you want any contemporaries, you should perhaps give me a list tomorrow or the next day. I’ll pass it along with mine.”

“I can’t think of any. I don’t know many guys down there outside of class.”

“Well, there are people at the bank who remember you from way back. I’ll spread the word and issue invitations when the date is set. Did you keep up your studies while you got engaged?”

“Sure. Anything can happen, but...” He knocked on the door frame that was the nearest wood.

Dinner was the meat loaf which Mrs. Bryant knew was one of his favorite dishes. She spoiled him at lunch and dinner for the rest of the week. Still, it wasn’t like watching Marilyn cook and eating with her. They had phone conversations, but sometimes she sounded distracted. They made an appointment for Thursday afternoon with Rev. Lawrence for marriage counseling. This was a requirement for having him perform the ceremony. Andy conveyed Dad’s invitation that Marilyn eat dinner with them after the appointment.

Going into the counseling, Andy thought that they had figured out what their marriage would be like, but would the church, as represented by the pastor, approve? Rev. Lawrence asked what they saw as their future.

“Well,” he said, “our immediate future is set in stone. Next year we’ll both be seniors at the University of Illinois -- the downstate campus.” Down there, everybody thought that they were the real U of I; Circle was something else. But he might as well be clear. “After that, we’ll be somewhere else. It depends on our job prospects, and my prospects, at least, will depend on recruiters.”

“While Andy has been generous about my interests on that subject,” Marilyn said, “realistically, his job prospects are more important. High-school English teachers have jobs everywhere, if not necessarily openings. There are fewer places where electrical engineers work.”

“But,” he said, “that is still something we have to decide when I have job offers. It doesn’t make sense to decide that I’ll work for Bell Labs before we know whether Bell Labs wants me.”

“And how do you see children in your life?”

“That’s a case,” Marilyn said, “where my career is the deciding factor. We both want children, but we don’t want them before I’m established as a teacher.”

“And you don’t mind her teaching?” This was addressed to him.

“You have to see that, in nearly the first serious conversation I had with Marilyn, she said that she planned to be a teacher. I fell in love with a woman who was going to teach. That might not be what attracted me, but it was always a part of the woman who attracted me.” Indeed, Marilyn-who-didn’t-intend-to-teach was a hypothetical person. He’d probably still love her, but he’d never really known her.

“Are you planning on Marilyn’s income for the family budget?”

Marilyn answered that one. “We have a budget, and a tight budget, for next year. We don’t have the beginnings of a budget for later years, except that we need at least one salary. But we won’t pay out more than we take in, nor promise to pay more from my salary than we know we’ll get from it.” He was glad to hear her make that commitment to staying solvent. They had different pictures of budgeting.

He’d never had problems living within his income since he’d started working. Of course, Dad had paid for most things, but Andy fully understood that you couldn’t have more than you could pay for. That you shouldn’t have less than you could pay for was one of the conventions of his culture that he didn’t pretend to understand, let alone accept. There were only three magazines publishing decent SF. He wouldn’t enjoy spending his time on a fourth; so why should he spend his money buying a fourth? Clothes should cover his skin in winter and cover his genitals in summer. He had clothes which did that; why should he buy more? This was especially obvious since they’d be moving next year, and they’d be a pain to pack. Well, Marilyn would handle the budget. She’d tell him how much he had available, and he’d spend any of it that he could see a use to spend.

“Have you discussed what tasks you will each do around the house? That is often more contentious than money is.”

“Marilyn has higher standards than I do. She’ll assign my duties. Part of her chores are supervising mine.”

“And this imbalance of authority doesn’t bother you?” Rev. Lawrence looked puzzled. Damn! Was this something that would make him balk at conducting the service?

“Nah! Every night, she’ll sleep in my arms. What we do before bedtime doesn’t matter.”

“There’s more to marriage than sex, you know.” Well, yes, but he hadn’t even brought up sex. Indeed, part of the pleasure -- the longest lasting part -- of his first having sex with Marilyn was that she wasn’t the sort of girl to have sex with a man she’d never consider marriage.

“I’m not using euphemisms. Oh, I don’t deny that I enjoy sex, but I insist on her sleeping in my arms.” Rev. Lawrence looked puzzled again. Andy was afraid that he’d plumb deeper into the sex, but he didn’t.

“After all,” Marilyn said, “marriage is a compromise between two people with different priorities. If that is one of Andy’s priorities, then it isn’t one I’m going to argue about. It isn’t as if he insisted on his way in everything.”

Rev. Lawrence had more questions, some of them were about the wedding. He didn’t look surprised that Marilyn fielded all of these questions.

“Well, I’m more concerned that you’ve thought these things through than what your particular answers are. You two seem to have thought them through. As a matter of curiosity, did you also think through the option of having the wedding a year from now?”

“Yes,” he said. “We decided against that.”

“I know that Mom or Dad raised that question with you,” Marilyn said.

“Actually, it’s sort of a natural question when the bride and groom will face one more year of college.”

“Well, we had a relationship,” Marilyn said, “that was evolving. My parents didn’t like it at any stage. It’s now reached the place that the next stage is marriage. I don’t see the sense of spending a year in limbo just because some people looking from outside think that the schedule would look more acceptable if we waited. I’m sure that the old cats of the church will think I’m pregnant. Well, I’m not, and I’m not about to get pregnant.”

“Well, nobody has suggested to me that you are.”

Mrs. Bryant was still there when they got home. She too was fond of Marilyn. Everybody was, though not as fond as he was, of course. After she left, he and Marilyn made out in the kitchen. Dad gave the bell the family two short rings when he came home. Andy went out to greet him, and Marilyn was neatly dressed by the time the two men got to the kitchen.

With Marilyn for guest, Mrs. Bryant had set the dining room table, and the meal was boeuf bourguignonne. He got to enjoy the taste and enjoy Marilyn’s enjoyment of it. She asked what Dad wanted for the ceremony.

“The girls will definitely want to be at the wedding,” Dad said. “Margaret should be, too. I’ll suggest to Margaret that she and the girls come just before the wedding, and the girls take their two weeks afterwards.” Andy was in favor of that.

“Yeah,” he said, “I want Mom there. She’s never met Marilyn, you know.”

“Sorry, Miss Grant,” Dad said. “Divorced parents are a complication.”

“But they are a reality, sir. I wouldn’t want Andy to deny any part of his family.”

“Look,” Dad said. “Nothing is more personal than a honeymoon, and I don’t want to micro-manage yours for Christ’s sake. Would a week in a Chicago hotel be a gift or an imposition?”

He hadn’t heard of that idea before, but they should have a honeymoon. He looked at Marilyn. “It’s all your choice,” he said. “My imagination hadn’t stretched to the room around the bed.” She blushed, and he knew he’d stepped in it. Dad was careful not to actually mention that he and Marilyn had sex, although he’d asked whether she would share the apartment. But he was talking about after they were married for God’s sake. Why was that a taboo? She hadn’t minded Rev. Lawrence talking about their sex life.

“It would certainly be a gift,” Marilyn said. “You’ve already been quite generous.”

“The week afterwards back here with the girls in the same house would certainly be an imposition. Would it, however, be one you could accept to make them happy?” He looked at Marilyn. It was her decision, as even Dad saw. He’d been addressing the question to her.

“That doesn’t sound like an imposition,” she said. “I like your daughters.”

After dinner, Dad went upstairs. Marilyn insisted on helping clear the table, but afterwards they had a nice cuddle. She repaired her clothes in the downstairs bath. Then they walked back to her place hand in hand.

“I tried to read your face,” she asked on that walk. “Did I speak out of turn?” He figured she was talking about their living in his room while the girls were there. All that was her decision, anyway.

“Hell, no. All I worried about was your reaction. I really love my sisters. I’m even beginning to like Molly, again. And they damn-well worship you. You’re high on the Trainor hit parade.”

“Well, the Trainors are high on my hit parade, too, especially the son.” That was great to hear. They had one more kiss with her standing on her porch and him on a lower step. Then she went in and he went back.

“Sorry about leaving the dishes,” Dad said from the living room. He was watching the news. “I figured that you would rather clear the table later.”

“Well, yes. But Marilyn insisted on helping.”

“She was a guest, but she insisted on clearing the table? Well, this will be her home soon enough.” He didn’t think it could be soon enough, but he didn’t argue with Dad. Indeed, the time until the wedding was not only stretching subjectively, every detail Marilyn and her mom decided seemed to add another day or another week to the preparation time.

“Look, Andy,” Dad continued. “Talking with your father about sex is certainly acceptable. Indeed, it’s mandatory at one stage. I did a bad job with that.” Yes, he had. They’d both been terribly embarrassed, and the same conversation had covered masturbation two years late and intercourse many years early. “Talking about sex with your wife is necessary and with your fiancée is acceptable. Talking about sex when both your father and your fiancée or wife are present is socially unacceptable. The same thing is true about nudity. As long as the two of us are alone in the house, my seeing you naked is no big deal. Your wife seeing you naked is almost unavoidable. Our both seeing you naked at the same time, or almost the same time, is deeply embarrassing. When you’re back here after the wedding, even when the girls are gone, keep yourself covered when you’re out of your room.” Actually, he tried to keep himself covered when Dad could see him. Dad tried with him, too, and more successfully.

“That doesn’t make a hell of a lot of sense.”

“Son, if it made sense, you’d figure it out without my help. You have a huge blind spot on social conventions.”

“Yeah. Do you think the things that Marilyn insists on are social conventions?” That was fairly likely. Well, plates were a social convention; at least everybody used plates when people could see them. No sex during her periods might be, but, if it was, how did Marilyn know? Did somebody tell her? Who? Damn those anthropologists for ducking the hard parts.

“Does it really matter? Do you care about what society thinks? Do you care about what your fiancée thinks?”

“Some days, you understand my priorities.”

“Son, nobody understands your priorities. I might know them. In that matter, your priorities are dead right. Anyway...” Dad abruptly changed the subject.

“I think it would be better if you called your mother. It’s your day, and there are still unresolved issues between us that could interfere with the simple question of her attendance. Look, suggest that she and the girls come early. I’ll pay her air fare as well as theirs. And, my son...”

“Yes?”

“You’re about to get a promise from a woman that her life will be your life. Don’t belittle that promise from another woman to another man. If Margaret wants her husband along, then you’ll welcome him.”

“Are you offering his air fare, too?”

“Well, I won’t go that far, but you’re not offering any air fares, and you can’t afford to.”

Wouldn’t you know it, Elliot answered the phone. In a house with two teenage girls, he got to the phone first.

“This is Andy. May I speak with my mother, please.” The last time he’d got Elliot on the phone, he’d asked for ‘Mrs. Margaret Brewster,’ but he didn’t want a fight this time.

“Hello, Andrew, long time no see. How’s your life going?”

“Well, Mom will have told you the big news. I don’t have my grades from last quarter, yet. The quarter before was straight A.”

“You’re good at that book stuff, Andrew.”

“Look, if Mom’s not there, could I speak to Molly or April?”

“What makes you think your mother’s not here?”

“Well, I asked to speak to her, and you didn’t put her on.”

The Turd yelled with his face away from the phone, “Peggy! Andrew’s calling, and he’s snotty as ever.”

“Andrew,” Mom asked when she got on the phone, “what did you do to annoy your stepfather?”

“Breathed, apparently. Look, I said I would send you a formal invitation when we got the date. Really, they haven’t got the date yet, but I do have more details. Apparently, the mother of the groom has some small part in a formal wedding. It’s much less than the father of the bride has, but it’s something. Anyway, you’re the mother of the groom. When they get the date finally nailed down, and I’m getting anxious about that, I’d like you here for that. Apparently, that means you come a little before the ceremony begins. Don’t ask me why; I’ve never been married before.”

“Well, you should have noticed when your friends were getting married.” Mom was certain that he had loads of friends -- now, just like Dad had a hectic social life -- now. Neither had been true when she was there, and neither had been true since.

“Well, I’ve been to maybe three weddings, and they were all church acquaintances of Dad’s. Business friends’ weddings, he attends alone. I couldn’t have picked the mother of the groom out of a crowd before the wedding, and I’m not certain how many of them I even saw during the service.”

“Well, you would have seen more if your father hadn’t taken you away from your old high school. You knew the older kids there.” Right, he’d known them so intimately that they bullied him unmercifully. He doubted that this was a reason for them to invite him to their weddings. He certainly wouldn’t have attended if they had.

“Anyway, Dad figures that the girls will be here for two weeks this summer anyway. If they come for the wedding, he’s willing to take the two weeks after as his visit. He’s offered to pay your air fare here as well as theirs.”

“I don’t know, Andrew. He gets two weeks in July, but I get to choose the weeks. This is the last visit for Molly, you know. He cut off your Christmases; I’m going to cut off his summers. Anyway, I think the decree specifies two weeks in July.” Dad hadn’t cut off his Christmas visits; Andy had cut them off himself because of The Turd. What Mom didn’t see is that parental custody ends at age eighteen. She couldn’t cut Molly’s visits off; Molly decided, and Dad paid for them, anyway.

“Well, if he accepts two weeks in June, and you accept two weeks in June, the court doesn’t have anything to say. If you want to send the matter to court, I’m sure you can, but it will only enrich a lawyer.”

“Well, I’m going to insist on the words of the decree. If someone wants to enrich a lawyer, it can be your father.” Dad sometimes said, ‘your mother,’ especially when he was emphasizing the relationship and the duty Andy had. He often said ‘Margaret.’ He hadn’t heard Mom once say ‘Jim’ since the divorce.

“Mom, get serious. The girls love Marilyn. Are you really going to keep them from my wedding with her -- their brother’s wedding? You’re still fighting the custody thing, but ask Molly what she thinks of missing Marilyn’s wedding. Her eighteenth birthday isn’t when you can keep her from contact with Dad; it’s when she gets to choose. Do you really want to be needlessly cruel to her just before that time?”

“Well, she’s registered at college. She still depends on me.”

“I thought Dad was required to pay her college expenses.”

“But he pays them through me.” Andy didn’t know the law, but he couldn’t imagine a court requiring that the college expenses be paid to a parent who withheld them from the child.

Well, Mom had been known to change her mind. He wouldn’t bring this worry to Marilyn until he had to. She, at least, was making progress in the planning.

After church Sunday, she spoke to Diane. Apparently, Marilyn had chosen her maid of honor years before she’d got around to thinking of choosing a groom. When the important matters were settled, Diane and he actually got acquainted. She’d been in MYF, and they’d spoken, but they hadn’t spoken often, much less deeply.

“Honestly,” a woman said from the door of the church, “you two were supposed to have grown up in the past seven years. Are you still gossiping?”

“Honestly, Mom,” Diane said, “this is important. Marilyn’s getting married, and I have to check out the groom.”

“Well, Marilyn will have to do her own checking out. The car’s leaving in one minute.” Diane hurried out the door.

“Well,” he told Marilyn, “I’m safe. You haven’t found my deep-buried faults yet, and she can’t help you.”

“Silly! I know all your faults. None of them is buried all that deep. It’s just that I love you despite them.” It being good weather, he walked her home. They held hands and took a round-about route.

“Give me the addresses of your sisters, will you?” Marilyn asked. “I want them to be bridesmaids.” That was tremendously generous of her.

“Both? The Moppet will love you for that.” He got out the pen she’d given him to write the address on the church bulletin. He always pocketed the church bulletins and threw them away at home rather than leaving them in the pew as litter.

“You know,” she said when she’d put that address in her handbag, “you need attendants, too. Who will you get for best man?” She took his hand again. He hadn’t thought about a best man. Actually, the only reason that he’d thought of a fancy wedding at all was that it seemed to be important to Marilyn.

“Well,” he said, stalling for time, “if you have April and Molly, maybe I should choose your brother.” That sounded like a good idea, now that he’d said it. Pete would, after all, be there.

“Andy, don’t you have any friends from high school? ... Or college?”

“Not really. Some classmates are friends in the sense of friendly contenders in class. I don’t think I have any addresses, even so. I don’t think I told any of them that I was engaged.” Marilyn didn’t say she was engaged either. She just waved the ring around until people asked. “Most of my social life on campus was with you. I think I’m closer to half your sisters than I am to my classmates.”

“Well, think about it.” He would think about it. It was too bad that Dad would be inappropriate for a best man. He was almost his only male friend. Maybe some of the guys from the hardware store? But he didn’t even know their last names.

They had been apart or only together like this -- in public -- for the longest time. Their kiss on her front porch was hotter for the length of their abstinence.

The girls called that Thursday. They were on different phones, but the same line. They both talked at once. They were thrilled about the honor, Molly as much as April.

“When is it?” Molly asked.

“That’s still up in the air. Marilyn’s aiming at the 25th now.”

“Mom says we can’t go before July,” Molly said.

“I can’t miss it,” April said. “I’ll run away and come there.”

“Cool it, Moppet. Dad wouldn’t pay your air fare, and he’d get in serious trouble if he did. Just tell Mom how important it is to you. I’ll talk to her if you want.”

Mom came on the phone.

“Mom, this isn’t about Dad; it isn’t really about me, anymore. It’s about your keeping relationships with all three of your children.”

“Your father always is trying to tear you away from me, and now he’s succeeded.”

“No, Mom. Dad never tries to tear us away from you, not since the custody hearing. That was a split decision, and he accepted that. The point is that you’re tearing the girls away from yourself. It’s something they want.”

“You can’t tell me that this isn’t his idea. Why should that girl ask them if he hadn’t bribed her?”

“Well, Marilyn asked them because she’s a sweet woman and she’s fond of them. They’re fond of her, too. They do have two weeks, you know. I don’t know if Marilyn would delay for that, but if she did and you made her, you’ll make more enemies than you need to. She hasn’t met you, and I haven’t told her about this. Do you want this to be the first thing she learns about you? You heard how excited the girls were. Do you really want to stand in their way?”

“I notice that you didn’t invite Elliot.”

“I didn’t. Of course, he’s your husband. If you want him to have a wedding invitation, I’ll see that he gets one.”

“He’s your stepfather. He should be in the wedding party.” ‘Wedding party’? Was that like the reception?

“Well, they’re my blood sisters. They should be in the wedding party.”

“I’m not sure that sisters are part of the wedding party.”

“I’ve extended an invitation to the three of you.”

“Well, Andrew, you think about it.” And he would think about it, especially the part about the wedding party.

“Dad,” he knocked at his door. The old man had gone upstairs when the call was obviously for Andy.

“Come in.”

“I keep hearing about a reception.”

“Yeah, that too is the Grants’ responsibility. My responsibility is the rehearsal dinner.”

“What do we rehearse?” Somehow, he could only think of one part of marriage to rehearse, and dinner would be an inappropriate occasion.

“Get your mind out of the gutter. You’re talking to your father. Save your salacious comments for your fiancée. Anyway, there is a rehearsal. All the bits of the wedding ceremony except the critical ones which actually get you married are rehearsed. Afterwards, we all go to dinner -- my dime.”

“Is that the wedding party?”

“Different sort of party, like the party of the first part. The people who eat at the rehearsal dinner are the wedding party. Why?”

“Mom said that Elliot should be in the wedding party. She’s trying to keep the girls from coming. She says that you get them for two weeks in July. June doesn’t count.”

“And the wedding of her son doesn’t count either?”

“She is really feeling spiteful. I cut out the Christmas visits, and she’s convinced it’s all a conspiracy on your part.”

“Well, I could have pressed you harder to continue them.”

“Dad, I make my own decisions.” If he hadn’t told Mom that he could hear her having sex with The Turd over his head, he wasn’t going to tell Dad. Now that they didn’t fight every night, Dad’s fond feelings for Mom had returned.

“Anyway,” Dad said, “I told you that you’re in a bad position to fight over a woman’s claim on behalf of her husband.”