We paid downstairs, searched Britex’s book of recommended tailors, scribbled down the name of a tailor a few blocks away, and left, happy to have solved at least one wedding drag issue.
I was eating dinner that night with Birdie. We went to Zen Yai Thai in the Tenderloin, Birdie’s favorite cheap Thai joint in the city. The place was unassuming, but attractive, brightly lit, with paper napkins stacked neatly on stainless-steel trays, matching wooden chairs, red walls, white china dinnerware, and black-topped tables, crowded with Thai families. In addition to the menu, there was a blackboard with daily specials written in Thai near the register. It smelled spicy and fabulous.
Over an appetizer of tod mun racha fish cakes, a shared green papaya salad, mus sa mun curry chicken, and pad woon sen, I entertained Birdie with the tale of the cheap tuxedo shirts and the overbearing Russian salesclerk at Britex.
During our dessert of fried banana and ice cream I complained, “I don’t understand Lucky. First she complained about heteronormative privilege and didn’t want to do it, but now she’s getting fussy about shirts! She’s more excited about the wedding than I am.”
Birdie set her spoon down and eyeballed me seriously. “Marriage is a special ritual. Lucky has never been married and has spent decades believing that she would never get married. Only in the past few years have gay people been allowed to get married. People need ritual in their lives. It adds meaning, and establishes formality and grace to decisions. Think about graduation ceremonies and anniversary parties.”
“I’ve never had a graduation ceremony. And I don’t do anniversaries. Not in my genes,” I grumbled.
“Just because you’ve avoided ritual all your life, does not mean that you can expect Lucky to do the same. Lucky loves you and you love Lucky. This is about love and promises and dedication.” Birdie laid her delicate freckled hand over mine, her age spots buried in the shallow wrinkles. “What can I do to help?”
“I know you’re right, but this is hard. When do we ever grow up?” I groused.
“Ask Lucky what she wants. Just do it. I can help out. Let me know what you need,” Birdie said gently. She picked up her spoon and resumed eating her dessert.
That night I came home to Lucky sitting in her leather armchair in front of a flickering fire in the library, surrounded by cats, tweed, and holding a pipe tobacco, with her laptop on her lap. I spied the glossy cover of a bridal magazine peeking out from under the chair. It appeared that asking Lucky what she wanted would be easy.
“I’m sorry if I’ve been cranky about the wedding. I’m not very good at this kind of thing. You know, celebrations and parties,” I stammered, feeling awkward.
“Oh, baby.” Lucky put down her pipe. “I know that you’re uncomfortable with this part. I’ve already ordered engraved wedding invitations, and I was thinking of both of us getting white brogues dyed to match our shirts.” Lucky showed me the web page with the wedding invites. “I picked Barcelona for our font. Kind of swirly, but I like it! And this deckled paper in smoke gray. What do you think?”
I cracked up. “Deckled paper? Brogues to match our shirts? You in slate blue and me in rose madder? Do we have matching shoelaces too? Are you going to become a groomzilla?”
“It doesn’t have to be an agonizing submersion into either rainbow gay wedding gewgaws or pink and silver straight gewgaws. We. Can. Be. Ourselves.” Lucky pulled me over to her lap. “Sit right here and tell me all about it. It’ll all be okay.”
Now seemed to be a good time to revisit the play party conundrum. There was another queer play party scheduled at the Citadel before the wedding and our Iran trip, and Lucky had been dropping plaintive hints about going together. I’d been thinking about it. It was obvious that Lucky was not bored with me, and I was confident of her love, lust, and dedication for me. My problems with polyamory had been with lovers who were liars, and Lucky was truthful.
“Hey, you. I’ve been thinking about that play party that you’ve been moping about. The quarterly one put on by the Bay Area Queer Mashup and held at the Citadel.”
“I haven’t been moping, I’ve been wistful! There is a big difference,” Lucky chided me good-naturedly.
“I know. I was teasing you a little. I’m sorry. I don’t want to go to it. For real. Why don’t you go by yourself though? You’ll have a good time and you already know a bunch of people who go to that one.”
“I’d rather go with you,” Lucky said, but I thought there was more to it.
“Tell me what’s going on with you. Do you miss play parties now?”
Lucky looked thoughtful and replied slowly, “I do. I miss being around the energy.”
“Why don’t you go without me? Didn’t you say that Tov and Mikail have been going to them? I don’t mind at all. Maybe it’s time we open up our relationship.”
“Maybe,” Lucky said with hesitation.
“Go frolic baby, but come home to me.” I kissed the palm of Lucky’s hand and snuggled her close.
“You’re not jealous?”
“No. Lying makes me crazy, but you’re not a liar.”
And so it went. Lucky went with Tov and Mikail to the quarterly Bay Area Queer Mashup play party at the Citadel. Adrian was there, wearing a metallic rainbow tail and silver hooves, and, as I found out later, Lucky found a curvaceous black-haired femme to fist in the sling.
Lucky came home at midnight reeking of pussy and Chanel No. 5. She came home to me in my pink paisley Liberty of London pajamas sprawled out on our bed happily drinking sweetened hot black tea, eating toasted pound cake, and teaching myself to read tarot cards. The deck was spread out haphazardly over the quilt, with Francy and Lulu-Bear helping by patting cards playfully, and I was listening to Mark Eitzel croon “Snowbird” from Music for Courage & Confidence. It had been blissful to spend the evening in solitude, in pleasurable abandonment with Francy and Lulu-Bear.
“Baby! Did you have a good time?” I asked, gathering up the cards.
Lucky started disrobing, throwing her sweaty clothing into the hamper. “Let me take a quick shower, then I’ll tell you all about it…”
* * *
Lucky’s happy-go-lucky equilibrium was finally thrown by wedding rings. We wanted to appear genuinely married in Iran, so we needed some form of traditional wedding bands. We Googled “gay wedding rings San Francisco,” but the options were either a minefield of rainbows and pink triangles, or they were blandly boring. We checked Etsy and after getting lost in a black hole of knitted Viking hats for cats and silkscreened steampunk-gear neckties, we found a Canadian jeweler who’d created a darkened hammered silver band flanked by gold rails that we both loved. We ordered two rings.
I had gotten out my sewing machine the week before, and made us both matching bow ties in a slate-blue, fuchsia, and silvery-gray paisley Italian silk brocade. We’d trolled Amazon for white brogues and bought two pairs, and I’d taken them to the cobbler to be dyed slate blue and rose madder.
The weekend before our wedding, I was a nervous wreck. Invitations had been sent out. RSVPs had been received. Ian was baking our wedding cake and Tov was nervously in charge of flowers. Our shirts had been sewn, cleaned and starched. There was champagne and nonalcoholic Golden Star Tea in the pantry, and Betty, Theo, Alex, and Sam were flying in two days before the ceremony.
On Sunday, I bounced around the apartment alternating between packing for the trip to Iran and checking that we had everything prepared for the wedding, with Lucky in the kitchen frying Marcella Hazan’s eggplant patties while listening to the Pretenders. The smell of garlic and Chrissie Hynde’s voice singing “Brass in Pocket” wafted through the apartment, while Lulu-Bear and Francy slept curled up in the kilim-covered bay window seat in the parlor.
After dinner, I washed the dishes. Secretly, I loved washing dishes. I loved immersing my hands in hot soapy water, drifting white soap bubbles, the act of scrubbing, the smell of lavender dish soap, and the satisfaction of cleanliness. No one ever believes you when you tell them
that you love washing dishes. It was a sensual meditative experience for me. That night, as I zoned out over the sink of dinner dishes, letting the magic of dishwashing calm me down, Lucky had other plans. I had just finished cleaning the greasy remnants of eggplant patty off the last plate, when I felt Lucky’s arm across my neck.
“The bedroom. Now.” She marched me through the kitchen doorway, down the darkened hall, and into our bedroom. The sheets were turned back and I was already wet and hard. I was always wet and hard for Lucky. Wasn’t that why we were getting married? I know that I’m juvenile. I’m a thirteen-year-old boy with only one thing on my mind, and Lucky had my number.
“Take off your clothes.”
My hands shook as I disrobed. How quickly I went from frantic worries about weddings, to the Zen act of dishwashing, to this state of fleshy preparedness for Lucky, my body and heart open to her. My world was this room and Lucky’s hands, her breath, her skin, her sweaty scent. I started melting, my insides dissolving, precome dripping down my thighs, my nipples hard and tender.
Lucky arranged me spread-eagled on the bed.
“Don’t move.” She undressed and put on her cock.
She eyed me critically, deciding her course of action. I knew that look but was barely coherent enough to appreciate it. She attached leather cuffs to my wrists and ankles, then ropes to the cuffs, and tied me securely to the bedposts. Simple, yet effective. I could feel the night air cool my open wet cunt and squirmed. She fiddled in the toy box at the foot of the bed, digging about with great clangs, humming, “It’s Now or Never” under her breath. I never understood her idle savoirfaire attitude when we started. What was Lucky thinking?
Lucky fastened clamps to my nipples, suddenly and tightly enough that I yelped in surprise. I could feel my cunt swell, but there was no friction. Nothing down there to rub against. I whimpered in frustration.
“We can’t have you unmarked for your wedding, can we? And Betty, Theo, Sam, and Alex will be here tomorrow, so it’s now or never.” Lucky grinned carnivorously, her canine teeth poking out with promise, and attached six clamps to my labia, three on each side. The clamps felt like teeth and Lucky was my wolf. I whimpered more, my hips rising from the bed.
“Please, please,” I begged.
“Please, what, my little invert?” Lucky took her cane from the umbrella stand and tapped my decorated tits. “Please what? Please hit me harder? Please stop?” Lucky caressed my cunt with her hand, spreading precome and tweaking the clamps, then fucking my mouth with her wet fingers. In and out, one hand on my throat, the other jamming her fingers down my throat until my eyes started to tear up. I started to come and Lucky stopped abruptly, pulling her spit-covered fingers from my mouth.
I was babbling by the time Lucky started caning my chest, and begging her to stop when she stuffed her day-old briefs into my mouth. I tried to stay still, but it was impossible. I mean, maybe it was possible for someone else, or maybe it was possible if the clamps were not fastened to my tender flesh, or maybe it was possible if it wasn’t a few days before we were getting married and I wasn’t jacked up on anticipation. Lucky removed the nipple clamps, only to give me three hard strikes across each breast.
“There, now maybe you’ll remember me on Wednesday. Do you think we should leave ‘obey’ in our vows?” Lucky asked teasingly while drawing the cane downward, over my belly and to my thighs.
“Yes!” I mumbled through the stinky cotton briefs, my eyes watering.
“Good answer! Now, let’s give you something to remember for your plane ride on Thursday.” Lucky laughed as she struck me five times on the inside of each tender white thigh.
“You’re mean,” I giggled as I managed to spit out a bit of underwear, spit dripping from the corner of my mouth.
“I’ll give you mean.” Lucky jabbed her hand into my cunt, wrist deep with one quick motion, twisting her fist inside of me and wrenching my come out of me. I didn’t expect that. Not at that particular moment, but once started, I was like a wind-up doll and couldn’t stop coming.
I sprayed her with my come up to the brown tufts of hair in her armpit and screamed. I screamed over and over, Lucky grabbing fistfuls of come from me like a miner seeking ore. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!”
Lucky clenched her cock, reattached the nipple clamps, hovered over me, and dove into me balls deep. Her cock, hips, and harness pushed the clamps on my labia, twisting them sideways.
“I can’t come any more!” I moaned. Lucky stopped for a few seconds and I relaxed, thinking we were done. Then she quickly started fucking me again. With a long “Noooooo,” I started coming again, over and over.
“You’re mine and you’ll come when I want you to come!” Lucky growled as she slammed unto me, fucking me, drawing out and letting the thick tip of her cock tease me, rubbing my cock and the clamps, before punching in deep and hard. Lucky was dripping sweat onto my chest. I couldn’t stop coming. Fucking Lucky was all I was good for in that moment, our bodies slamming against each other’s.
We were both yelling and coming hard. Her in me, and me in her. Where did we stop and end? We were feral creatures, sniffing out pleasure in each other’s arms. Shivering and spent, wet and smelly, we finally slept.
The next morning, I rose tender, bruised, and whistling, with fresh cane stripes across my chest and thighs. Lucky had a bruise circling her wrist like the moon around the sun. Betty would be here in a few hours, and from that moment onward we would be switched on. We would be entertaining or being entertained. I stumbled into the shower, lathered up with sea-salt soap, dried off, put on my brown corduroy robe that made me feel like Gertrude Stein on a particularly erudite day, went into the kitchen, and made strong coffee for Lucky and black tea for myself. I brought our morning beverages into the bedroom on a tea tray.
“Good morning!” I handed Lucky a cup of steaming black coffee as she sat up in bed. “In two days we’ll be hitched. In two hours Betty and Theo will be swooping through our apartment scattering advice like breadcrumbs.”
“Are you ready for mom? Think she’ll give us a tantric how-to sex book for a wedding gift?”
“Ha! Your mom is a card. She’s great. I wonder how she’ll get along with Theo?”
“I’m sure they’ll find things to talk about.”
The morning went swiftly. We picked up the gang from the airport. We’d rented a van for the day so we could retrieve them all at once. Theo, Alex, and Sam arrived at noon and Betty at twelve thirty. From noon onward, the day was a cacophony of children, cats, parents, and grandchildren. By dinnertime, we’d given in to chaos, ordered pizza from Marcello’s, bathed Alex and Sam, then settled them in the library in front of a stack of movies.
“Do you think they’re old enough for The Rocky Horror Picture Show? Lucky asked, aghast as a corseted Dr. Frank N. Furter arrived in his elevator cage singing “Sweet Transvestite,” crimsoned lips articulating the words “faithful handyman” lasciviously.
Betty answered, “Darling, it’s San Francisco! They need to remember something exciting and forbidden about this trip!” She ruffled Alex’s and Sam’s damp hair.
“It’s okay, Lucky. They’re nine and twelve years old. Hell, their dad let them see The Hunger Games, which was totally inappropriate. I think they can deal with a musical,” Theo added.
We retired to the parlor, leaving Sam, Alex, Lulu-Bear, and Francy curled up in sleeping bags on the carpeted library floor and in the capable hands of Dr. Frank N. Furter and company, a huge metal mixing bowl of buttered popcorn between them.
We settled in the parlor with the brown velvet curtains open to the night. I brought out a tray with a pot of ginger tea and a plate of shortbread.
“Now kids, I wanted to get you a little something but couldn’t bring it on the plane so here you go. Go on. Open it!” Betty brought out a large envelope.
“Mom! You don’t have money to be spending on us.”
As Lucky opened the card with a picture of two grooms on the front, a spoonful of pu
rple glitter spilled out. I snickered at the glitter, knowing that glitter was only second to hairballs for Things We Do Not Want To Find On The Carpet. Betty had given us a gift certificate to Cole Hardware. It read, For the power tool of your choice. Congratulations on your powerful love and your powerful marriage! Love you both—Mom.
“I figured now that you’re finally living in this big apartment, you might want to do some renovating. Keep going! There’s more in the envelope.” Betty beamed.
Lucky shook out the envelope and an elaborate, purple-marbled gift certificate tumbled out. “Wow! You bought us tickets to Body Trust’s Peaceful Mountain Portals of Pleasure Retreat Center in Seattle.” Lucky blushed.
“Betty, that is awesome and so sweet of you!” I gave Betty a hug. “We need a miter saw and I’ve heard nothing but excellent things about the folks at Body Trust.”
“It was so hard to find a workshop for genderqueer folks. I found tons of tantric workshops for lesbians, gay men, and straight couples, but I was pretty sure you two needed something special.”
Theo handed us a square box wrapped in garish iridescent rainbow-striped paper with an immense glittering rainbow bow. “The kids picked the wrapping paper. They said that rainbows are special for gay people. And they made the gift. Well, at least one of them.” She grinned.
I unwrapped the box. In it was a Christmas ornament shaped like a unicorn with a frame in its tummy. Alex and Sam had decoupaged a photo of Lucky and me into the frame. There we were, in our black leather jackets, grinning from the tummy of a rainbow glitter unicorn Christmas ornament. We were speechless. The unicorn was nestled in top of a folded-up Christmas stocking. Theo had made Lucky a red wool Christmas stocking with her name cross-stitched in blue on the cuff. I’d made Theo’s stocking when she was younger, and Theo had made matching ones for Alex and Sam. Now we all had matching stockings. It looked as if Lucky was officially part of the family.
I poured us all another cup of ginger tea and passed around the plate of cookies. We chatted for a while, talking about our plans for tomorrow. I wanted to spend the morning running last-minute wedding errands, and the afternoon relaxing. Betty and Theo both wanted to go to Golden Gate Park, and Theo wanted to take the kids to the Ice Cream Bar a few blocks away in Cole Valley. We had gone there the last time they had visited San Francisco and Sam was still raving about the L-O-L-A Cola Float. He had chatted up the charming soda jerk when we were there and she had graciously shown him their directions for making their house-made cola. He’d since become obsessed with making cola, so I’d bought him a collection of obscure cola ingredients for his birthday: orange oil, nutmeg oil, coriander oil, and neroli oil.
Behrouz Gets Lucky Page 18