Get me to the church on time

Get me to the church on time

Randy Foreman drove through the confusing streets of St. Paul. He didn’t know the city very well, and every street looked like Snelling Avenue, whether or not it actually was Snelling Avenue. He hoped he would recognize the church when he saw it, and that he remembered the directions Claire had given him. He came to a screeching halt at a red light, but that gave him time to take a sip from the can of pop set between his thighs. It was Jolt. Good old Jolt. He certainly needed it. He hadn’t been able to sleep at all the night before. And no wonder. Today was only the most exciting one of his life.

Randy’s car was not looking its best. Both of the doors were broken, so Randy had to climb in through the back hatch. Randy felt awkward himself in his rented tux. His mother had picked it out, and then ironed it for him that morning while he was in the shower. Well, he had pretty much ordered her to.

Yet none of that mattered. As he turned onto a side street, Randy only noticed his surroundings enough to avoid causing a traffic accident. His head was full of the litany of: I’m going to marry Claire, I’m going to marry Claire!

Randy hadn’t seen the church before. He had trusted Claire to pick a nice place. She was a good person, after all! She had done all of the wedding arrangements, including picking out the venue. That was women’s work. All Randy needed to do was show up at the wedding. And put on his bachelor party. Since it was his last party as a single man, he had actually put some thought into it. It was clean cut, Christian, and rated C for conservative. His mother, of course, provided the food. He had only invited others of like mind. People who could appreciate his choice of entertainment.

He had gone with Bob Dole campaign videos as a change of pace from his own considerable oeuvre. And he felt the party had gone well. Though he wondered why his guests, most of them friends and Good People from UNI, had laughed when he refused their offer of a stripper. It hadn’t been funny. What did they think he was?

Finally, Randy sighted the church straight ahead. He’d made it. It was a nice place, a very nice place. Though, no doubt, very expensive to match. Luckily, he wasn’t the one footing the bill. Claire\'s father would have to deal with that. Poor Mr. Phipps! Randy checked his watch. He was on time. Now, he had only to find a parking space. He muttered to himself as he cruised up and down the street. No go.

All the available spaces were taken. He kept looking. Still, he only saw parked cars. He had started whining under his breath, and muttering out loud, “Stay cool Randy just stay cool.” He drove around the block yet another time. Finally, he found a place in a parking garage at the other end of the street. He would have to walk. Well, that wasn’t so bad. It wouldn’t kill him.

He walked towards the church, now almost frantic. “I hope I can make it, I hope I can make it through!”

He made it.

Randy could hear people talking as he slipped into the church though a side door. Apparently, the guests had already started to arrive. He soon found the room reserved for the wedding party. Several women were sitting on a couch. Bridesmaids. He could tell by their dresses. They were talking while one of them took hot rollers of the other’s hair. As soon as they saw Randy, they were suddenly quiet. He grinned at them.

He didn’t recognize either of them, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t met them before. He had trouble remembering all of Claire’s friends. He did remember one of her friends, though. The big woman, Kira, who he had met several years before when he took the weekend off to visit Claire at her college. Later, he had had an email correspondence with her during the time Claire refused to speak to him.

Kira had always been friendly. Very polite, and very gracious. Yet she still frightened him a little, what with her crazy talk about getting a tattoo that said “Dad.” He could never tell if she was joking or not. Apparently, if she was in the wedding party, she hadn’t arrived yet. That was good. Randy wasn’t sure he was ready to see her again.

Randy gave the bridesmaids another smile, his best Genuine Nice Guy look. They seemed amused at the most, before they turned back to their discussion. Randy went on into the room. He was ready. He even had the flower in his buttonhole. His mother had reminded him. There was nothing else he had to do. He sat down in a folding chair.

That was when he saw his best man. A friend from UNI, the University of Nothing but Idiots, and a Good Person. He was just coming into the room from what must have been a bathroom. His shoes were black and well polished. He hadn’t seen Randy yet. Not that Randy cared. He headed over.

He needed something to occupy his attention. Claire, of course, wouldn’t be arriving for a while yet. She was dressing at home. It was bad luck, Randy knew, and his mother had told him as much, for the groom to see the bride before the wedding.

“Well, well,” the best man said. “It’s Randingo Forminator! You finally made it. You’re a little late, you know. Nervous?”

“Nervous? Never,” said Randy. “You know me. Your old buddy Randy. Fit as a fiddle, and ready for anything I may encounter on the mean, lean streets. Tougher than Clint Eastwood and a favorite of ladies everywhere.”

Everyone in the room laughed.

“How much longer do we have to wait?” said Randy. He ignored the laughter. “Is this about the picture sessions? I told Claire we can do all that nonsense after the wedding, when we can stand around and pose for some photographer all we want. These women! I know they like their little mementos, but I don’t have all day!”

“It hasn’t been that long, Randy,” said the best man. “You should have brought a book if you were that impatient. Getting married’s just another event in life, really. Anyway, I haven’t seen you for a while. I’ve been out of town, you know.”

Randy hadn’t known. He never did pay much attention to the lives of people other than himself. “No,” he said. “Anyway, so, so. I guess I forgot.”

“I see. I checked your web page when I had a chance, and you didn’t make an announcement. I’m surprised at you. Isn’t this the most important day of your life or something? But then, there wasn’t anything else there either.”

Randy sniffed. What was this? He knew his friend could be snarky, in ways Randy didn’t think were very funny, but this. His website… He had to be joking. His website was perfect. It had his high school graduation picture, with him posed in the blue suit his mother had picked out for him in front of a Washington DC background. Along with several Extremely Conservative and Waterloo, Iowa links.

“No, I don’t put information about my, about my private life on my web page. The whole world doesn’t need to know I’m getting married,” said Randy. “That’s how I like it. I’m cool, and it’s cool. But I’m telling you now. Sometimes, I don’t know why I bothered going online. I won’t repeat this, but people have gotten me onto mailing lists of, well I won’t tell you what, and I’ve had to get tough with them and say Listen, I didn’t ask to be on this list and it’s not funny, now take my name off and--”

Randy kept talking. The bridesmaids checked their lipstick and sighed. No one, really, seemed to be listening to him, but that didn’t matter. He kept talking. Soon, he had moved on to a detailed account of his trip to Minneapolis the year before with the Young Satanists for Rush Limbaugh. And he didn’t stop there.

“Rush… Rush. He’s a good man. A Good Person! I agree with him, what he says, one hundred percent most of the time. He’s talking sense when other people are, when other people are talking c-r-a-p. We’ve got all these crazy whacked out feminists blaming their problems on men and becoming, uh, becoming lesbians. They hate men. They have abortions. Soon they’ll regret it, but it’ll be too late. I helped Claire see the light, you know. She wouldn’t talk to me for two years, but I held out, I waited for her, I never gave up, and then we got back together. Because she finally realized how wrong she was about me. And now we’re getting married. I will be the man of the house. She understands that. You bet. Like Phyllis Schafly said. She’s my hero. Did you know that?”

“How utterly fascinating,” one of the bridesmaids muttered. But Randy hadn’t heard her. He cleared his throat.

A few minutes later, a woman stuck her head in the doorway. “I just heard. The bride’s on her way. Not much longer now.”

“Well, it’s about time!” said Randy.

“And we need the groom about now. Time to come and face the music, big boy.” With that, the woman was gone.

Randy slipped past the rest of the wedding party. They were getting into position as well. The bridesmaids were holding their appropriately pink bouquets. One of them leaned over to adjust her skirt with her free hand. Randy could already hear classical music swelling out in the church. “This is it!” he said. “Stay cool, and may god bless you!” He didn’t even look back to see their reactions.

Randy walked down the aisle to the alter. He was so excited he could scarcely breathe. Soon. So soon! He was a Genuine Nice Guy, and he was about to marry Claire! There was quite a crowd, too. He hadn’t invited many people, but Claire’s side had turned out in full force. He looked for his mother, but he couldn’t find her. The church was well lit, and decorated with lots of white lace and pink roses and ribbons. Not his taste. But it was Claire’s day as well as his. And ladies liked to decorate.

He could see the altar just ahead now. The priest was ready. He was old and safe, with angel white hair, just as Randy would have imagined him to be. This was a proper church wedding, sanctified by God and the community. All was well. And yet…

There was Claire! She was waiting up at the front of the church, next to the altar, almost hidden by a large arrangement of roses. She wore a satin dress that was a little too big for her. She was grinning. She would not stop grinning. But-- She wasn’t supposed to be there, not yet. Randy knew that. She was supposed to come down the aisle on her father’s arm to meet him, after the rest of the wedding party.

Randy kept going, even through his surprise. “But—Claire!” he said, or stuttered, when he reached the altar and took his place.

She just grinned. “Calm down, Randy.”

The string quartet paused, and then started on another piece. Randy just stood there and watched, along with the congregation, as the wedding party came down the aisle, two by two. He didn’t know what to think. Surely, everything was okay. Claire had been acting so strangely of late. Perhaps she didn’t want to have anyone giving her away, even if it was her father. Soon, she would surely step forward with him to face the priest. As long as she wound up with him when it was all over. That was what counted.

And so she wasn’t wearing a decent, proper white gown with a butt bow. At least she wasn’t wearing a black leather miniskirt and chains either, and he knew she was capable of that. Yes. He was worrying over nothing. Everything was fine.

He was startled by a sudden silence. The bridesmaids and groomsmen turned to face the back of the church. Then, the tones of Wagner’s bridal march boomed out of the organ. The congregation stood, almost as one. He looked. A woman was coming down the aisle towards him, on the arm of heavy-set man in a tuxedo. She was a big woman, a very big woman. Her face was hidden in the folds of her massive veil, but the fabric was sheer and he could see the schoolteacher glare of her glasses. He could still tell who she was. She was coming closer and closer. The priest nodded at him and stepped up to the altar to begin the ceremony. Randy had no choice but to take his place. The man, the woman’s father, went back to his seat in the first row. She was there, standing next to him in front of the priest.

KIRA!

Randy gasped. “I don’t believe it, I don’t believe it, I don’t believe it… I never. I didn’t… What’s going--”

Kira just looked at him. “Down, boy,” she said. “You’re going through with this.”

Everyone sat down. After a few moments, the priest began: “Dearly beloved, we are gathered today, in the presence of God, to witness the bonding of two people. To witness the union of Kira and Randy as mistress and slave…”

What was this? Randy couldn’t believe it. He was fairly certain this wasn’t how the marriage ceremony usually went. Later, he would learn Kira had paid the priest well to deliver the service she had written. For now, his mind clashed with his steel plate in shock. This had to be a nightmare. He gave Claire a pleading look, but she ignored him. It couldn’t be true. But it was.

The priest was saying: “Do you, Randy, take this woman Kira to be your lawful wedded mistress, to love and honor, to obey her every command, and worship her as a good Boy Slut should, no matter how she treats you. To wash her dishes and clean her toilet, to cook her meals just as she prefers them. To carry her shopping bags and those of her friends. To mow her lawn in summer, and shovel her walk in winter. To never cross her in matters large or small, in sickness and in health, so long as you both shall live?”

NO!!! screamed a voice in Randy’s head.

Kira slapped him. “He does.”

“I do,” Randy whimpered.

“And do you, Kira, take this Boy Slut Randy, to be your lawful wedded slave. To chain up in your closet when he misbehaves. To discipline in all the ways necessary for his own good. To use as he should be used, in sickness and in health, in good times and in bad, for so long as you both shall live?”

“I do!” Kira said.

“Then by the power invested in me by Kira, and by the state of Minnesota, I now pronounce you mistress and slave. You may now spank the boy-slave.”

Kira smiled. She stepped behind Randy, and handed her bouquet over to her mother. Then she wound up, and spanked Randy with a force no one present would soon forget. Randy yelped. He hadn’t even seen it coming.

Kira went back to her bridesmaids. One of them was holding something. She must have been keeping it behind the altar. It was-- Randy’s eyes bugged out. It was a studded black slave collar, connected to a long dog chain. Before Randy could protest, Kira was fastening it around his neck, securing it so tightly, he knew he hadn’t a chance of getting away. She led him up the aisle, while the recessional march pulsed behind them. Past the pews full of grinning people, including Randy’s own family. Cameras flashed. Randy’s face was stiff and plastic.

He looked straight ahead. Nowhere else. Yet he could still hear Kira’s roar of joy. She was laughing, her head thrown back and mouth open wide, as she called out to her friends in passing: “I GOT HIM, GIRLS!”

But Randy hadn’t forgotten Claire, the woman he had thought he was going to marry. Not for a minute.

At the reception, Kira turned him loose, and walked off with her friends for the rest of the evening. Randy was free to find Claire, and he did. He wanted to talk with her. About why she had tricked him into thinking he was going to marry her. He wanted an answer, and he wanted it now. But Claire didn’t let him have one. She kept evading him. When he did manage to talk to her for a few minutes out in the lobby, someone came looking for her. Finally, he wound up chasing her around the refreshment tables. Claire didn’t run, yet she was always out of reach.

“Claire! We need to talk,” he said, gasping. He lunged for her yet again, raising his voice so he could hear it over a woman doing karaoke to Bette Midler’s “From a Distance.” Kira and her friends were all over the karaoke. “You know, I’m concerned about you. You’ve been so different lately. Claire, are you all right?”

Claire just stepped out of his way, yet again. “I’m fine, Randy. Shouldn’t you go find Kira? I wouldn’t her to think I was monopolizing you.”

Finally, after he fell off his bar stool in front of a huge group of guests, the shock was just too much. He sat down at an empty table and put his head down on his arms. And so he remained for the rest of the evening.

Until the overhead lights were suddenly on. He was dragged up to his feet. Everyone was watching. Kira’s face loomed nearby. “Party’s over, boy,” she said. She swatted his ass, while the guests laughed. “Time for the honeymoon.”

But not before they posed for the wedding picture: Randy was thrown over Kira’s considerable lap, his trousers around his ankles, while she lifted a crop whip, one of her many wedding gifts, and held it in place over his ass…

They left in a nightmare shower of rice. Soon, they were in a limousine, on their way to the bed and breakfast Kira had picked out, for the first night of their honeymoon. It was a half hour drive, but Randy would remember none of it later. He just lay there against Kira’s massive bosom. For the most part, she ignored him. He was jolted out of his shock when the car pulled to a stop in front of a white gingerbread house.

There was a bellhop ready to meet them, but it was Randy who had to carry Kira’s luggage in. All of it. Kira must have told the bellhop not to help him, because the man just stood there and watched. Randy had to make several trips back and forth.

Finally, though, they were up in their bridal suite. Randy changed into his new pajamas in the bathroom, and then sat primly on the edge of the huge, heart shaped bathtub. Kira was under the impression he was shaving.

Kira had taken over the bed. She had unpacked a few things, and looked through a few of her massive heap of gifts. Most of them were practical, pots and dish sets or bedsheets wrapped in floral paper and with cards addressed, in little old lady writing, to a Mr. and Mrs. Randy Foreman. She had even started the first few thank you cards. Randy stalled. Randy prayed. But he couldn’t stay in there for too long. They were a married couple, come what may, and he had his duty to perform.

Kira didn’t bother to look up when he came out of the bathroom. She was reading a romance novel she had included in her luggage. She wore a satin nightgown with heaps of lace at the neckline and wrists. She had to push it back to free her hands in order to turn the page in her book. Randy coughed. He laid down next to her, and took a book that was on top of the nearest open suitcase. He didn’t care what it was.

They laid there. For what seemed an eternity, though it wasn’t. Kira finished reading her entire book. Finally, though, it was getting late. Kira stretched. She took off her glasses, and set them on her nightstand.

Now or never. Randy leaned over and kissed Kira on the cheek. “There!” he said. “We’ve done it and gotten it over with. Good night!”

He turned away, smug with relief. Kira could turn off the lamp. He was about to just lie down and go to sleep, when something stopped him.

Kira shook her head. “Oh, no, no. Not so fast. You’ve got it all wrong.” Randy just stared at her, beyond horror, as she opened the nightstand drawer. He couldn’t look away as she took out a pair of handcuffs. She jingled them right in front of him. “It’s hardly over. Why, we’ve only just begun.”


THE END