Chapter 40: Wedding Ceremony and Reception

For the ceremony I invited all of the law firm partners as well as those associates on the list as possible partners for next year. As expected, most sent their regrets, citing business or family reasons. I expected only three partners to show up: our boss Barnes, Judge Stern and my mentor Joe Pope. I was therefore surprised to get a dozen “Yes” replies from lawyers or wives.

Pope and Barnes both mentioned that Abril was the attraction, she was hard to pass up. Pope joked, “wives are curious about her wedding dress, men are curious if it will be all there for the entire ceremony.” (The location we picked was known - to the right people - to host nude events.) The names “Ji El” and “Do Wong” might have leaked. The date, time, location, and length of the event made it easy to opt in. Also, there was a betting pool on how much of Abril the dress showed. (The shifting transparency screwed up the measurements so Stern declared all those bets were off.)

The location was a private space that was available for weddings, funerals, baby reveals, birthday parties, etc. The building “felt open to the outside” but actually, it was private enough that they hosted naturalist events. The grounds were essentially a small, well maintained private park with a large enclosed gazebo or pavilion with a few rooms attached. A tent could be rented for meals or larger gatherings, but we were not going that way. They had some movable internal walls so it was comfy and adjustable for 10 or 100 guests. Seating was arranged as a single area, not the traditional two sides with an aisle. It seemed friendlier.

The main structure was a surrounded by a tall wall 12-feet high on private land, to discourage paparazzi with their telephotos. The dome/glass-in gazebo arched high enough that there were trees growing inside, plus it was near an airport so the helicopters did not even try.

Managing partner David Barnes brought his third wife Ann. She knew David in college, where they cheated on their intended spouses. After burying her first two husbands, both in the entertainment business, Ann was now a very wealthy investor (like 5 to 10 times the value of the law firm). David also brought his daughter Rose, his wife-exchange partner who was probably Abril’s closest friend in the wife-exchange group. Rose shared her parents bed, platonically, for some time. Ann adopted Rose and the daughters body often was a visual inspiration to the parents. This happened slowly over time and they were all cool about it. My friend Samantha pushed Rose and David across the line into incest, it made sense given Ann’s decreased sex drive and as a way for her parents to keep Rose off the LA dating market. Rose was very happy getting her pussy serviced by clean, older well-to-do married law partners who treated her like their boss’s daughter. Plus Rose often hosted pool parties of the younger wife-exchange partners, and some of those played girl-girl games while the others watched for inspiration.

Judge Stern brought his wife and his stepdaughter Jessica to the wedding. Stern’s wife was older than most of the wives and was the least social of them. Despite having Jessica out-of-wedlock as a teen, she had never given up her middle-American, middle-class values, so she came to all the weddings.

Super-skinny tall 30-year old Jessica was nicknamed the “academic nun” and was very popular with everyone - wives and lawyers. She was beautiful, and thanks to her (unknown) father she was 10% to 15% black. Almost a PhD at one of the big local schools, she gave up academics when one of her profs made an introduction that lead to her “ghosting” a moderately successful movie script with a famously stupid actor. Those often do not work out well. This one leaked. She adjusted her expectations (upward), explained her limits and her father’s status to the actor (scared him into silence) and made a pile of money, plus she kept the character rights.

Jessica never dated - not once. When her parents first suggested her for the law firm social she said “yes” despite her virginity. She used a series of toys before her first social, and did not tell the law partner she was matched with that she was a virgin. Her “Uncle Barnes” poured over reports and picked a good one for her first. He got it right the first time, both enjoyed the night. She was very content having once-night-a-month sex with an older lawyer.

Joe Pope brought his Indonesian wife Vi to the wedding. Officially, all he said about the Church girls was that they replaced Amy as his wife-exchange partners. He probably thought their behavior at a wedding was not up to the standards of Judge Stern or Mrs. Barnes ... or anybody else. He was mortally afraid of upsetting Abril because he wanted her so bad he could taste it.

Since his “goodbye Amy” email Pope found himself dodging questions from Stern and his wife. Amy had never met Stern’s wife at a law firm social event because she never went, but the two women were actually second cousins, they discovered it when they met at a funeral out East last Spring and each recognized the other by name, so they made the connection. (That meant Amy and Jessica were distant relatives.) For some reason neither mentioned this fact to Joe. When Joe sent the email about dropping Amy, Judge Stern emailed Joe back mentioning the connection, scaring him. They wanting to know where “Cousin Amy” was. Of course, the only thing worse than dodging Stern was him finding out the truth about Chronis, that would get Pope fired for sure, and probably result in charges.

Even without the Stern connection if the “Chronis” story got out Pope suddenly saw his future with the firm ending. Amy was popular with many people and there was a three-day extended social coming. When Pope was unresponsive Barnes got dragged into it. Joe had not even shared the details with Barnes. Since Ann Barnes was also in the entertainment business, if she found out what Pope did to Amy it was potentially a career-killing matter, she could literally freeze him out of any job in the state. Sometimes it is a funny world. The bottom line was that Ann Barnes and the Sterns had questions about Amy that Pope purely did not want to face. So the Popes arrived at the wedding late and left right after the “I do’s.”

It was clear the Vi Pope was still very pissed at Joe over the invasion of their house a week ago on Amy’s behalf. Vi was embarrassed in a way she did not believe was possible, in her own home while Joe was at a lunch where he could not be reached by cell phone. Amy saw the show live. After what happened at Chronis, Amy was cheered up considerably by the event, which Joe could never live down.

Of course, after encouraging me to put my cock into Amy on our date-with-benefits, and then giving her to Chronis, Joe did not have that long to live.

A fourth senior partner, Evert Russell, also showed up with his wife and his wife-exchange partner. His reply to the invitation was a surprise to me, but when I asked Joe he explained that Evert was the most pro-family partner in the firm, because of his own trials in this area. He brought his son’s wife Holly, his daughter-in-law, to the socials as his exchange partner, so his associates could screw her and line up more dates if they were good enough and liked to share. This seemed unconventional to say the least. (Note: partners do not screw their own wife-exchange partners at the socials, they exchange them with other partners to have naked fun with overnight.)

Evert is still married to his wife Adrian, who lives in Vegas with her sister and has a medical career. She moved because the air in LA was killing her. When we talked at the reception, Judge Stern opined that the Russells were the future of marriage in Cali. “Many kids don’t commit any more,” he said. Both Evert men were still married, Evert and Adrian got together when and where they could, including special occasions like a law firm wedding.

Evert’s son Ty married Holly and they had two children before he had a life change. He had been very unsuccessful as a straight LA lawyer, he got fired for the third time on his 30th birthday. So Ty took off for the San Francisco Bay area to find himself. “He could not even commit to being straight,” Stern said. Ty returned two years later, gay with a reputation from Napa as a “chef whisperer.” Now he works in LA. The couple live (separate bedrooms) with their two kids in Evert’s three-wing house.

As the woman-of-the-house Holly is the obvious choice for Evert’s wife-exchange partner. Both Holly and Ty follow the full medical protocols, so it is possible that they sleep together on occasion. Before his wife Adrian moved to Vegas she gave Holly a push to share her husband Evert’s bed. The two did have an emotional bond. “No reason for both of you to do without,” Adrian said as she put some of Holly’s frilly things in Evert’s bedroom dresser before she moved. “I know you will both be good to each other.”

Besides the socials, daughter-in-law Holly often dated other members of the law firm for events like dinner, bowling, tennis, etc. Her company was not always “with benefits,” but on weekend dates like Vegas or Maui or Catalina she was highly recommended for her nighttime pleasure value with multiple law firm partners. Holly boldly calls her bed on such dates “a three-ring circus, when she is lucky.”

The real audience for the ceremony was the wives of the lawyers. The older wives were gossips of the first order who would question everything. The younger wife-exchange women who attended did so as friends of Abril and were likely to be tolerant most things.

A group of four older wives came together in a limo, they did not go to the law firm socials so they had not met Abril. But they liked to see who their husbands got so excited about during monthly “infidelity celebration nights.” Abril can be very charming with older people, this was one of the first lessons her father taught her. Some older women are rich, lonely, and appreciative, making them perfect targets for cons.

The older women were not fans of Do Wong’s outfit mainly because they didn’t know the designer, but they did not really expect their husbands would see her again. If they only knew.

Kick Howard did not attend the wedding, but his wife arranged a group of five younger wife-exchange women, including the fiancees of the two associates who were reading my brief, and were on the list as possible partners. The women “wanted to see the slave driver.” They hired a van with a driver. Mrs. Howard and two others cornered me to say “you have taken our men from us for the weekend.” But they said that was okay. “If our husbands were here, we would have to leave after one drink.” At the reception I provided plenty of champagne. So, “Cheers!”

All were VERY impressed by the outfits Abril, Li and Cynthia wore, they had no chance to wear an original Ji El with their current husbands. They might be considering a move up.

Our non-law firm guests were a more varied group, people like Uncle Qwit were hard to explain if they were “my” guests so I suggested many of them were old neighbors of Abril or myself. Abril’s family was specifically NOT invited, they could not lend any legitimacy to Abril’s play-acting. Plus, it would upset them (like most things with Abril did).

Samantha took over the “Mother of the Bride” role. After “Whiter Shade Of Pale” at the June social it was clear that she had a connection with Abril.

Phil Townes (an associate lawyer with the firm) and Red (Samantha’s #2) were the only “mixed” couple to attend. They were suddenly dating (since Red was the gang-bang star at the latest closing) and things looked good. An issue was that Red was in on the plan for ripping off the law firm. I worried about Phil, his wallet or his heart might get in the way for her. But Samantha trusted Red, she said Red would drag Phil over to the the dark side easy, “with a kiss and a special shimmy, she does thing a two-legged woman can’t duplicate.”

As it happened it was too late for that, Phil had already crossed over.

Ernie and his wife were there, they were known by a few guest from Ernie’s tax work. Ernie quietly spread the word that he was cutting ties with the firm he worked for. He was not a CPA so he had no equity, and the firm was taking advantage. He was tired of it so he gave notice. Picking up Gracie’s mother’s estate as an outside client gave him outside income that dwarfed his pay, so he could really write his own ticket.

His partners complained, they wanted a slice, but Ernie brought in Judge Stern who explained the rules in detail. Their own lawyers were useless, which is what happens when you go cheap and hire your college drinking buddies on the important stuff.

Li’s mother Chin and Amy both came disguised as men. They really wanted to see the wedding so one of Amy’s movie make-up friends cooked up a disguise with some stick-on appliances. Amy always wanted to wear facial hair, she wore a goatee and sideburns. Strangely, I still wanted to kiss her. Irene came as Amy’s date, wearing her actual military dress uniform with a serious sword and sidearm. (She had never really resigned, Indonesia listed her as MIA, so the uniform was almost legitimate.) Irene was perfect at making sure nobody got too close if they were looking at Amy funny. Irene does not warm up very quickly, although she did share a word with Vi, who recognized the “SAM Battery” decoration on the uniform and was quite impressed.

After Chronis, where Amy saw Irene as a bad-ass and Irene saw Amy as a captive to protect, they quickly became comfortable with each other.

I figured there was a chance Irene might gut Joe Pope like a fish if she got him alone. I knew she was carrying a ceramic knife. But it was a small chance, and she would cover-up the crime, so I lived with it.

Nia came to the wedding and was very sociable. She was clearly pregnant, she explained that her husband had died (in Detroit) of a heart defect and when she called I sent her help and I took her into my house. I was a former neighbor of them both (which was true). She said she was happy in my home, she had a job as a driver and was very pleased to be here in sunny LA. Unfortunately, she could never go home again, because of the altitude, she had been down too long. She made me look very good, like a white knight.

Martin was there with both his young wives, but honestly everyone took them as his daughters - either that or he was rich and therefore very interesting. Both wives were clearly raised in wealth and society outside the US: one in Spain and the other in a neighborhood in South America that acted like it was still in Spain under the monarch. They spoke several languages and exchanged tales with some of the wives about their extended stays in Rio, Ibiza, Tenerife and the Alps, always in the most exclusive hotels.

In all, there were a total of 21 law firm lawyers, wives and wife-exchange partners present, and 21 who were not associated with the law firm. It was a good crowd for the reception.

In addition to the three physical gifts to Abril (ring, wheels and dress) there was a fourth gift, one to make up for the fact that this was probably the only wedding she would know in her grifting life. To buttress Abril for her lack of support from friends and family, I gave her the greatest gift she could imagine during the ceremony, our vows.

Instead of the usual boring vows so many people take, or the flawed vows other people make up themselves, we reached into the past she treasured, to what some would call the most significant romantic wedding vows in history. We recited, in the Old Medieval Castilian of the period, an abridged version of the wedding vows of Isabella I of Castile and her dear younger cousin Ferdinand II of Aragon, the Sainted Cousin Monarchs who, in marriage, united Spain for the Church in both the Old World, and New World they discovered. It was not an easy speech for Abril to memorize, but it was a labor of pure love. She treasured every syllable of the ancient Spanish. Abril told me it was the greatest of the all gifts I gave her, the one that truly won her heart.