by Nicky Wells
‘We have the wedding video,’ Alex reminded her.
‘Very true.’ Casey smiled. ‘But that’s still not what I mean. Anyway… it’s probably the drink speaking. It was perfect, and I don’t want it to end.’
‘Tell you what,’ Alex mused out loud. ‘We could always come back out here with a glass of bubbly afterwards and talk the night away until the sun rises.’
He didn’t need to explain what he meant by afterwards. ‘Oh, now there’s an idea,’ Casey enthused. ‘You don’t think the crew would mind?’
‘I should think they’d be fast asleep by then. After all, we’re supposed to set sail for Spain in the morning.’
‘Go on, then,’ Casey gushed, as if suddenly possessed by a second wind. ‘Let’s be Mr and Mrs Morgan at last.’ She smiled and beckoned at Alex like a wanton sex goddess. ‘Take me to thy lair, man.’
‘My wish is your command,’ Alex quipped. He made to pick Casey up again, but quick as lightning, she slipped off her shoes, gathered up her dress, and set off running along the gangway. ‘Catch me if you can!’
‘Oi! Wench!’ Alex shouted after her, allowing her a few seconds’ headstart before giving chase. Man, he loved this woman and all her crazy traits.
He had known that she was his kind of girl when she had suddenly materialised from out of nowhere on the stage in that pub all those years ago. He had been quietly dying at the drums, listening to their latest trial lead singer butchering song after song. He smiled while he thought back to that moment.
‘We’ll never make it like this,’ he had seethed, bashing the cymbals to vent his anger. ‘Something’s got to happen, or we’ll have to call it a day.’ And right at that moment, something happened. Casey happened.
‘Excuse me, mate,’ she said to the hapless singer. ‘You’re awful. They’re definitely not loving you out there. Let me have a go.’ The crowd cheered and clapped, and Casey wrestled the microphone out of the singer’s hands.
Security appeared on stage to take Casey away, but Alex motioned for them to leave her alone. Obviously he hadn’t even known her name then, but there was something about her. Besides, that level of spunk deserved a try at the mic.
‘Right guys, show me what you can do,’ she taunted the band. ‘How about some real rock?’
Myles shrugged, feigning indifference but evidently delighted at the turn of events. He strummed a few chords that morphed into the intro to Guns N’ Roses’ ‘Sweet Child o’ Mine’. The out-of-the-blue-woman punched the air with her right fist, assumed ‘the stance’, and launched herself into the vocals with gusto. She brought the house down, and Alex knew that he had to have her. As his lead singer, that was, not as his girlfriend. That came later…
‘And now she’s my wife,’ Alex concluded with pride as he loped after his bride. He managed to catch the hem of her dress in his hands and held fast. Casey stopped short, nearly tripping over, laughing wildly.
‘You caught me.’
‘Again! I’m a lucky man.’
They had reached the door to the cabin, and Casey pushed it open with her elbow. ‘Shall I make you really lucky?’
‘You’re doing that eyebrow thing,’ Alex said. ‘I daresay you’ll make me incredibly lucky.’
‘What eyebrow thing?’
‘That thing where one of your eyebrows goes up to your hairline, and you look like a wicked school mistress.’
‘I what? Never!’ Casey screeched and dashed to the mirror. ‘I don’t see it.’
‘Of course you don’t,’ Alex tried to calm her. ‘It’s a fleeting thing, but you do it a lot, and it usually means my luck is in.’ He was slightly breathless after their little run, and he fumbled to undo his bowtie and the top button of his shirt.
‘He’s hot under the collar,’ Casey teased. ‘How sweet.’
‘Not just the collar.’
‘That’s good news. However, the bad news is…’ Casey turned her back to Alex. ‘…you’ll have to undo these thirty-six buttons first.’
Alex looked at the delicate, fabric-covered buttons and groaned. ‘That’s going to take forever.’
‘I’m in no hurry.’
‘Hmm,’ Alex mumbled. He was finding it hard to concentrate on undoing the buttons. His fingers were like jelly, and each button seemed to take an eternity.
‘Are you sure I can’t rip the rest off?’ Alex enquired when he was about halfway down. ‘It would be quite romantic, don’t you think? Husband ravishes wife on wedding night and all that.’
‘No,’ Casey objected. ‘This gown cost a fortune. I’ll never own anything as expensive ever again, and I want to preserve it. For, you know, when we renew our vows in twenty years, or maybe even for one of our daughters to wear, should she choose to.’
‘Renewing vows,’ Alex mumbled. ‘I like the sound of that. And I like the sound of daughters even more—if we can ever get round to making one!’
‘Nearly there,’ Casey spurred him on. ‘I can almost wriggle out of it now.’ She gave her hips a little shake, and all of Alex’s frustration melted away at the sight of the blue lacy knickers peeping through the gap in the fabric that his meticulous unbuttoning efforts had created. He swallowed hard. Even though they had made love hundreds of times before, he suddenly felt like this was their first time.
‘This is so weird,’ Casey broke into his thoughts with a giggle. ‘It’s like we’ve never done this before. Everything is weird.’
Alex turned her around so he could look her in the eyes again. There they were, the emerald gems that had captured and held his heart. He kissed Casey’s nose.
‘Weird bad, or weird good?’ he prompted.
‘Just weird. Must be wedding nerves or something,’ Casey joked. ‘Exciting, though.’ She wriggled her body some more and shook the dress off her shoulders. With a soft swish, it slid down her side, over her hips, and gathered in a pool of silken delicateness at her feet.
‘You’re standing in a pool of moonlight,’ Alex whispered. ‘Hold that thought. Don’t move.’
He looked around frantically for something to write on—something, anything—and noticed a desk by the far wall of the cabin. Surely it would hold some stationery?
Crossing the floor in three giant steps, he rummaged in a drawer until he found a notepad and a pen. Without bothering to sit down, he scribbled furiously for a few minutes, reading out to Casey what he was writing.
‘Sorry,’ he apologised over his shoulder when he was nearly done. ‘A new—’
‘A new song, I know.’ Casey’s voice was sweet as honey. ‘And that’s what I love about you.’
‘You know me so well. We should get married,’ Alex grinned as he straightened up. His next joke died on his lips when his eyes fell on Casey, now reclining on the bed. While he had been making notes, she had stepped out of her gown and arranged herself for him in all her naked glory, exactly as he had dreamed. She was on her side, her head propped on one hand, the other arm tucked behind her back. There was the hint of a tan where her skin had been exposed to the sun during the day. The glow served to highlight the milky creaminess of Casey’s body as though she was wearing a dress in reverse. Her nipples were pink and taut like rosebuds, and Alex could barely contain himself.
‘Hello there,’ Casey purred. ‘Ready to join me at last?’
Alex nodded but didn’t speak. He undid his belt and buttons so that he could get out of his trousers. He began undoing his shirt but didn’t have the patience to deal with any more buttons, so he tugged hard until they pinged off with a satisfying ripping sound. It’s only a dress shirt, he reasoned with himself. Easy to replace, unlike Casey’s gown.
Casey wolf-whistled her approval. ‘Atta boy, don’t hold back now!’
Undressed at last, Alex lunged onto to the bed, landing next to his wife with confident panache. She snuggled in to him eagerly, and he bent his head to kiss her properly. Her lips tasted of strawberries, and he sucked greedily. Casey responded like for like and ground her hips into his groin
. He ran a hand down her back, and she moaned with pleasure. Then he turned his attention to her breasts.
‘Are you ready?’ he whispered into her ear.
‘I’m ready,’ Casey whispered. She smiled widely and he rose above her, poised for action. And then—
Nothing.
~Casey~
Casey had felt it building for some time. She couldn’t quite understand what was happening to her, but nonetheless, there it was. She had fought it valiantly—thought excited thoughts, mentally hurried Alex on—and yet, as he was poised to join her, she couldn’t hold it back any longer. She erupted into the most almighty yawn. Her jaws dropped open as if they were spring-operated, and tears rolled from her eyes while she gulped for air, waiting for the yawn to play out—unable to speak, unable to think, mortified, panicked at what Alex would say, think, feel, at this sexual faux-pas, and yet utterly unable to stop.
‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered feebly when the yawn had finally let go of her. She felt flat, spent. All desire for sex had vanished. ‘I’m so sorry.’
~Alex~
Nothing.
Alex could feel beads of sweat springing up on his forehead. He had never laid down on the job before. Never.
He pushed himself a little higher on his elbows, raising his hips away from Casey, and sneaked a peek down to his nether regions. He didn’t really need visual confirmation, but he sought it anyway. And there he was, flaccid and limp and utterly useless. He felt sick all of a sudden. And spent. And worried.
‘I’m so sorry,’ he muttered feebly.
‘It’s not your fault,’ Casey assured him with a weak smile. He felt terrible.
‘How can you say it’s not my fault?’ he responded, gesturing vaguely at his loin region. ‘I’m the one who vanished.’
‘My killer yawn,’ Casey replied, somewhat enigmatically. ‘It’s not your fault.’
Alex shook his head and looked his wife in the eye. ‘I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.’ Then he noticed the tears glistening on her cheeks, and his heart broke. He dabbed at the droplets with his thumb, worried that Casey would bat his hand away, but she smiled.
‘I think it’s maybe the sea air. Or the alcohol. Or all the excitement,’ she offered.
Alex pondered this for a moment. She might have a point there. He had drunk rather a lot, he supposed. Although, they had made love after a lot more alcohol before.
‘I couldn’t help it,’ Casey continued. ‘This yawn, it simply came over me. It was nothing to do with you, I swear. I promise.’
Alex gulped. Evidently Casey was making excuses for him. And now she was also making advances on him, eager to show her love, her desire. She stroked all the right places and cupped him in her hand just so. But his body didn’t respond at all. There was nothing.
For the first time in his entire adult life, Alex was paralysed with confusion. He couldn’t let Casey down, not this night. But the more he willed his body to oblige, the less turned-on he felt. Casey hadn’t quite cottoned on to the situation yet.
‘What’s the matter, big boy?’ she teased, working her fingers around him. ‘Are you playing hard to get?’
‘Casey.’ Alex’s voice emerged rather more gruff than he had intended. He swallowed and coughed to clear his throat. ‘Casey, stop.’
He had to get her to abandon her efforts, well intentioned though they were, before he died of humiliation. But how did you tell your wife that you couldn’t perform on your wedding night?
Casey’s hand stopped mid-massage and remained clamped around the source of his shame for a few seconds. Her eyes searched his, and he tried to smile as they looked at each other. Mercifully, he felt the pressure on his groin ease as Casey peeled her fingers off, and he took a deep breath.
‘Alex?’ There was a tremor in Casey’s voice, and he forced himself to smile widely. ‘Alex, what’s up?’
‘I think it’s more a question of what’s not up,’ he tried to joke.
‘Are you all right?’
‘I really don’t know.’ Alex shrugged. How could he begin to express how he felt? He sucked at that kind of stuff, except when he was writing songs. He sighed. ‘I don’t know. One minute, I’m hot like never before, and the next, I can’t get it in. I have absolutely no idea what happened.’
‘Is it because I yawned?’
‘No, it’s not because you yawned,’ Alex snapped. What the heck was she going on about? Then he softened his voice, horrified at the hurt in Casey’s face.
‘So sorry, sweetie, that was uncalled for. I’m not quite sure what’s going on. I feel… deficient, somehow. I simply… there’s nothing. I can’t… I don’t know… It’s—’ He paused.
‘You can’t get it up again?’ Casey supplied on his behalf.
Alex sighed once more. ‘That would be it.’
For a moment, they lay side by side in silence. Alex was dizzy and somewhat nauseous. His world, his manliness, had been rocked to the core. Unbidden memories sailed through his head of all the times he had poked fun at the advertisements relating to ‘erectile dysfunction’, having felt confident that such an affliction would never concern him. And yet here he was, very much dysfunctional in the erectile department.
Next to him, Casey yawned again, clapping her hand to her mouth. ‘So sorry. I don’t know what’s come over me.’
‘It’s only a yawn,’ Alex replied.
‘It’s not just a yawn,’ Casey confessed. ‘I’m all… I’m all dried up. And tired. Like all I want to do is sleep. One minute, we were going for it, and the next, I’m yawning and totally not turned on anymore. Like someone threw a switch.’
Alex sat up a little, excited by the metaphor. ‘That’s exactly what it’s like, like someone has thrown a switch. But I’ll be damned if I can un-switch it.’
Casey sat up, too. ‘D’you know,’ she mumbled through another yawn. ‘It’s not a big deal. We’ve had a long day, we’ve been in the fresh air all day, and we’ve drunk a lot. We’re probably knackered out.’
‘You think?’ Alex was ready to grab onto this lifeline of an explanation and hold on tight. ‘You think that’s really all it is?’
‘Of course I do.’ Casey laughed, obviously failing to comprehend the seriousness of his self-doubt. ‘We’ve made love loads of times. Our bodies sing to each other. There’s no reason why we should suddenly be all frigid with each other. It must be tiredness.’ She was warming to her theme, and a certain sparkle had returned to her eyes.
‘I bet you,’ she said, ‘I bet you if we looked up “sex on the wedding night”, we’d find all sorts of stuff about how couples like us don’t do it.’
‘Do you reckon?’
‘Shall we have a look?’
Alex nodded. Humiliating though it was to end his wedding night examining consummation statistics, perhaps there was some comfort in it. And then he would be able to sleep, and tomorrow would be another day.
Casey had already hopped out of bed and retrieved her tablet. She fired up the search engine and sat back next to him, showing him the results page. Agog, they stared as the screen filled with articles about sex on the wedding night—or lack thereof.
‘Look at that one,’ Casey prompted and pointed to a link.
‘“More than one in four couples don’t have sex on their wedding night because they’re too tired or too drunk or both”,’ Alex read out loud. He grinned. ‘Well, I’m both tired and drunk, but I didn’t think I wouldn’t be able to… you know. Love you.’
‘But your body may think otherwise,’ Casey persisted. ‘Read that one.’
Alex waited for the link to materialise. ‘Wow,’ he exclaimed. ‘This is shocking. I had no idea. More than half of couples in this survey don’t make love on their wedding night, and nearly a fifth wait three days?’ He frowned. ‘I’m not waiting three days!’
Casey gave a soft laugh. ‘Nobody’s asking you to. But what say we stop freaking out and call it a night? We’re obviously quite normal.’
�
��I hate being normal,’ Alex grumbled.
Casey poked him in the ribs. ‘You know what I mean. Normal is good, in this context. Stop fretting.’
‘But it’s so embarrassing!’
Casey rolled her eyes at him when he said that. No doubt she would give him a little lecture now.
‘Why is it embarrassing?’ she challenged. ‘To whom? I’m not embarrassed. You shouldn’t be embarrassed. And anyway, who’s to know? It’s not like you have to tweet about it.’ She grinned. ‘You know what they say: “What goes on in the bridal suite stays in the bridal suite”.’
At this, Alex burst out laughing. Only Casey could twist an old rock star adage into something to break the tension in this situation.
‘I like that,’ he said when he could speak again. And it was true, he felt a little better, a little less panicked, about his inability to live up to expectations. ‘What do we do now?’
Casey shrugged. ‘We can either go to sleep, or we can go outside and watch the sunrise. What do you want to do?’
Alex chewed his lower lip. What did he want to do? Truth be told, he would love to sleep. But on the other hand, he had already let his bride down in one critical respect, no matter how much the statistics reassured him that it was quite normal. What would Casey want to do now? What should he say so he wouldn’t disappoint her further?
‘Tell you what,’ Casey cut into his musings. ‘Let’s open the porthole, turn off the lights, and let ourselves be rocked to sleep by the waves. And tomorrow is a new day.’
Alex softly shook his head. It never ceased to amaze him how Casey could read him like an open book.
‘You are one wonderful woman, Mrs Morgan,’ he whispered. ‘And I love you so much.’
‘I love you too, Alex.’
Chapter Two:
A ‘Not So Honey’moon
~Casey~
The cabin was filled with air, light, and the sound of waves lapping against the hull of the yacht. Casey opened her eyes and stretched luxuriously. She smiled widely as she recalled the previous day. She was married. They were on their honeymoon! Life was awesome.