by Swan Adamson
When his tree-sit was over, the tree-man who called himself Tremaynne came to Portland. He got more publicity when he joined an Animal Liberation Front demonstration in front of a big animal research facility. Tremaynne Woods, movie-star-cute hero of environmental causes and animal rights, was in the news again. You listened to his stories of animal cruelty because he was so incredibly sexy.
But he still had to go through the bankruptcy thing because he’d been living on plastic for two years and his creditors were hunting him down.
There are so many bankrupts that the proceedings are held with groups of ten at a time. Tremaynne and I met as my group was coming out of the bankruptcy courtroom and his group was going in. It was, like, ordained. The minute I recognized him I knew I’d marry him. We weren’t shy with each other at all. It was, like, we both instantly understood that we wanted to be together.
The one thing I wasn’t quite prepared for was how short he was. He looked a lot taller on TV.
“How was the judge?” he asked. “Did he sentence you to debtor’s prison for the rest of your life?”
“No. It went just like the lawyer said.”
“I don’t have a lawyer,” he said. “I’m doing it all myself.” He held up a copy of Bankruptcy for Dummies.
“I used a kit for my recent divorce,” I said, all smiley, making sure he saw I wasn’t wearing a wedding ring.
He looked me up and down, slowly, his eyes licking me up. I felt a hot stirring in my crotch.
“What did the judge let you keep?” he asked.
“My car. I suppose because it’s not worth anything.”
“I don’t own a car,” he said. “I don’t want to contribute to global warming.”
“You’re Tremaynne Woods, aren’t you?” I had to make sure.
He smiled and cocked his head, pleased that I’d recognized him. “And who are you?”
“Venus Gilroy.”
“The goddess of love. Here in bankruptcy court.”
“I hate money,” I said.
“But you have such beautiful assets.”
A warm shudder ran through me. “Not anymore.”
“Oh yeah?” he said quietly. “I don’t believe you.”
“The judge wiped out my debt, but he wiped out my credit, too. It’s cash-only for the next seven years.”
“Those weren’t the kind of assets I was talking about, Venus.” He kept his voice low, intimate, like he was sharing a secret with me.
In the hot, focused beam of his eyes I felt like kindling just starting to catch fire. My clothes were burning away. “If you’re interested,” I said, “I could show you my spreadsheet.”
He looked me up and down again. He came as close as a whisper. “Do you know how they kill foxes to make fur coats?”
“I don’t wear fur,” I said.
“They stick an electric rod up their asshole and electrocute them.”
“That’s horrible.”
“I worked in one of those places. Undercover. I got pictures.” He gently took hold of my wrist, looked into my eyes, then glanced at my watch. “I gotta go. Destitution beckons.”
We both stood there, staring at one another, not wanting to break the magic bubble.
Someone should write a book about what it feels like to fall in love at first sight. It’s a weird, almost dangerous feeling. Nothing and no one else matters. It’s like looking into a wild river. You know that it’s there, just waiting to suck you away in its dark, powerful current. All you have to do is jump.
I would have run away with Tremaynne Woods that minute if he’d asked me to.
“They like it when you sound contrite,” I said. “In court. Like you’ve learned your lesson.”
“I learned my lesson all right,” Tremaynne said. “Too bad it was the wrong one.” There was a kind of mocking defiance in his voice and cocky manner.
“You don’t think we’re supposed to learn from our mistakes?”
“I don’t make mistakes,” he said.
“Everybody makes mistakes.”
“Everything I do, I do for a reason,” he said. “Where’s your car parked?”
“Not far.”
“You want to drive me to the homeless shelter when I’m out of here?”
I didn’t know if he was joking or not. “You don’t live in a homeless shelter.”
“Are you inviting me to move in with you?”
The river was waiting. I closed my eyes and jumped in.
The fact that we’d met in bankruptcy court always seemed kind of crazily romantic to me. Now an irritating little voice whispered: “This man has no money and no credit cards. Like you, he doesn’t know how to make money or keep money. He’ll never be able to support you; you’ll probably end up supporting him.”
And did I really want a life committed to environmental activism? A life dedicated to saving trees instead of roaring around in a gas-guzzling SUV?
I looked down at my tattooed engagement ring, wondering why I’d even asked him to marry me. Because if I was brutally brutally honest, Tremaynne Woods had nothing to offer except the best sex I’d ever had in my life. He staked a claim on my body the first time we made love. When sex is that good, it has to mean something.
As I crouched there, petting him and wondering about our future, he opened one nut-colored eye and stared at me. Brushed his fingers along my cheek. “Why you crying, babe?”
I shook my head. I really didn’t know why I was blubbering. Sometimes life and who you are and what you want and what you end up with just seems like too much. Or too little.
Confusing.
Underneath all my doubts I did love him. The question was, why? He was strong but tender, with a secret vulnerability that made me want to take care of him. He was committed to something in a way I never had been. He seemed to exist in a larger picture, a larger world than mine.
“Come to bed.” He sat up and slowly began to undress me.
The futon was all warm and ready, just waiting for me to slide in between the sheets.
“How was dinner with your dads?” Tremaynne asked as he slowly unbuttoned my blouse.
“I wish you’d been there.”
He pulled off my blouse and rested his head on my breasts. “Mmmm. So warm. This is my dinner.”
“They were so disappointed,” I said. And let out a sigh as he moved up and began nuzzling my neck. “It was supposed to be a celebration.”
“I hope you had a good time,” he said, squatting behind me. He brushed my hair to one side and gave the back of my neck little love bites.
“I may as well tell you now,” I panted.
He reached around and popped my breasts out of the sexy little black French bra I’d found on sale at Victoria’s Secret. “Let’s not talk. Let’s just suck.”
He pulled me down to the bed and slid his tongue into my mouth. I had a sudden fear that my breath stank of coffee and cigarettes and the meat that I told him I didn’t eat anymore. “You’ll laugh,” I said, pulling away.
“Okay.” His lips slid up into an anticipatory smile.
“They want us to go on our honeymoon with them.”
Tremaynne scratched his chin.
“To some wilderness resort. My dad was the architect. Whitman’s writing about it. It would all be free.”
“What resort?”
“I think it’s called Pine Mountain.”
“Pine Mountain Lodge?” He propped himself up on an elbow. “Your dad was the architect for that?”
“You’ve heard of it?”
“Yeah. It sounds familiar.”
“We’d have our own luxury suite,” I said. “There’s a spa. It would all be free.”
Tremaynne suddenly leapt off the futon and headed for the computer. He was completely naked. I had a flash of his hard, tight little buns. I could hear the mouse clicking, the sound of the keyboard being tapped, the hushed shrieks and boings as he connected to the Internet.
He was always doing that. Sometimes
in the middle of a conversation he’d raise a hand and say, “Wait a minute, I’ve got to check something out.” Sometimes I’d wake up in the middle of the night and see him sitting there in the dark, his body washed by the gray light of the computer screen.
“So I’ll tell them no,” I said.
He was clicking away, reading something. “Who?”
“The dads. I knew it was a crazy idea. Whoever heard of going on a honeymoon with your fathers?”
He stopped clicking, read a little more, and then looked at me. “Call them right now,” he said. He pointed to the telephone. “Tell them we’d love to go to Pine Mountain Lodge.”
Chapter
2
Remember when my dad told me that “just a few friends” would be at his and Whitman’s DP ceremony?
Yeah, right.
What really happened was so typical of how they operate. Or how Whitman operates, I should say.
“We’re just letting a few close friends in on this,” he insisted. “If they want to show up, they can.”
“Aren’t you sending out invitations?” I asked.
“Oh God, no. There’s no ceremony of any kind. Nothing romantic. It’s like registering a dog. You sign a paper and give them a check for sixty-five dollars. That’s it.”
“Doesn’t anybody pronounce you husband and husband or something?”
“No, sweetheart. Nobody speaks through the entire procedure except to ask how you’re paying. It takes place in this really ugly office building in need of major feng shui.”
I felt sorry for them. They’re both so into making their surroundings so perfect. This was a big deal for them, but there was no way they could make it romantic or special.
They couldn’t get legally married because according to state law only a man and a woman could do that. They weren’t allowed any kind of civil union that gave them any legal rights or status as a couple. All they had, as Whitman pointed out, was this local registry thing. It had no legal bearing outside the county and gave the signers no privileges within.
“It’s the crumb they’ve thrown us so we won’t revolt,” he said.
But the dads were determined to be there the first day the registry opened. And that just happened to be July first, three days before Tremaynne and I were getting married. So I had a lot on my mind as I ransacked my messy apartment trying to find the only show-offy dress that I owned.
Tremaynne doesn’t worry about clothes because he doesn’t own any. All he owns is what’ll fit into his backpack.
He didn’t own a car either, so I had to drive us to the registry office. By the time we arrived, about a hundred people were already gathered outside and more were arriving every minute. These were the dads’ “few close friends.” I saw so many familiar faces that at first I thought it was a humongous party. Then I saw a large, angry-looking man holding up a sign that read “Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.”
Then I saw a local television news truck.
“Oh shit.”
“What’s going on?” Tremaynne asked.
My adrenaline kicked in hard and fast. “It’s the first day of the registry. So they’re protesting.”
“Who is?”
“Who do you think?” I snapped. It just made me so mad I wanted to start swinging. “I’m not going to let those assholes ruin this for the dads!”
“You’re beautiful when you’re pissed off,” Tremaynne said. “Come on, let’s get into the action.”
I had to park my junky old Toyota blocks away, amidst a shining sea of Mercedes, BMWs, and forty-thousand-dollar SUVs. We walked fast. Easy for Tremaynne in his blue jeans and hiking boots, murder for me in my heels and tight evening dress. I wobbled down the uneven sidewalks, wishing Tremaynne would slow down and give me his arm.
“There’s Venus!” someone shouted as we turned the corner and approached the registry office. Everyone looked in my direction. Some of my friends whistled. I waved, feeling like a five-second movie star. I’d never forgotten that Sylphide, the dads’ pretzel-thin yoga teacher, once said I looked like Marilyn Monroe in my tight red dress.
Everyone I’d ever seen at one of the dads’ parties was hanging out in front of this nondescript office building. Most of my best friends were there, too, because the dads were like their dads, too. Everyone was dressed up, but I was the only one showing a bit of skin.
It was a bright, windy day. Mount Hood was glowing in the distance.
As a seasoned party girl I can usually gauge the mood of a gathering pretty fast. Everyone who’d come to celebrate the dads’ DP was excited, but they didn’t quite know what to do. They wanted to be happy, the way you’re supposed to be happy at weddings. But there wasn’t any sort of ceremony to look forward to, or a church where you could sit down. And there were seven people hanging off to one side like an ominous storm cloud.
“God hates homos!” they chanted.
I could feel my bare skin turning really hot. Ed and Thisbe Nesbitt were serving champagne from the back of their Lexus SUV. In crystal glasses, very classy. Thisbe airkissed me and whispered, “It was all so nice until those unpleasant people showed up.”
“Nobody told them that dinosaurs are extinct.” It was Marielle, the gorgeous six-foot-two Dutch woman who was Whitman’s best friend. She’d set up a table on the sidewalk next to Ed and Thisbe, laid it with a white cloth, and was serving sushi canapés.
“Are my dads here yet?” I asked her.
“No, but they’re due any minute.”
“I wish we could do something,” Thisbe said anxiously. “This is such an important event. Those extremists shouldn’t be allowed to spoil it.”
Fokke, Marielle’s venture-capitalist Dutch husband, angrily bulldozed his way through the crowd. “Muricans,” he grumbled, shaking his head. “Ya, I told doze bastards to go but dey-dey-dey want a fight.”
“Ya, all they want is the publicity,” Marielle said.
“Okay,” I said, feeling reckless and insanely protective of the dads, “I’ll give the fuckers some publicity.”
“Nay,” Marielle scolded. “You can’t fight in that pretty dress.”
“Watch me.” As I sized up my targets, Tremaynne slipped his hand into mine.
“At least have some sushi and champagne before you attack,” Marielle said.
Tremaynne shook his head. “None for me, thanks.”
“What?” Marielle looked offended. “You don’t like sushi?”
“Fish,” Tremaynne said. “I don’t eat anything that has eyes.”
Marielle squinted, puzzled, then shrugged and looked at me. “You, Venus, you love my sushi.”
“I sure do.”
I stared at her jewelry as she quickly served me pieces of raw, liver-red tuna with wasabi and soy sauce. Marielle always wore huge handmade pieces of platinum and gold inset with the jewels her husband bought for her in South Africa. A yellow diamond the size of an elf’s eye winked in her ring. Something I would never have. I wouldn’t even come close. Tall beautiful Marielle and her short pushy husband (pretending not to eyeball my cleavage) lived in a world beyond my dreams. The world of millionaires.
Tremaynne and I were paupers. We’d never even been rich before we went bankrupt, just bogged down with credit-card debt.
I had a sudden sinking feeling that it was always going to be like that. Tremaynne wasn’t interested in making tons of money and I hated to work. I floated from one boring, dead-end job to the next, much to the dads’ dismay.
Thisbe handed us flutes of champagne. “I hear you’re getting married on the Fourth of July and then you’re all going off together on a family honeymoon. I just think that’s so . . . unusual.”
“Is dis the guy you’re going to marry?” Fokke wanted to know. He didn’t give me time to answer. “What do you do?” he demanded of Tremaynne.
“I work for the earth,” said my fiancé.
“Ya,” Fokke the developer said, “what does that mean? What does the earth pay you?”
&
nbsp; While they were talking, Lorenzo Lopez passed by with a tiny cell phone held daintily to his ear. He was an interior decorator from a rich Argentinian family. “Venus, darling.” He airkissed me. “Congratulations!”
I thought he was referring to my impending marriage. “Thanks.”
“When is it due?” Lorenzo asked.
“When is what due?”
He pointed his cell phone at my stomach. “The baby!”
Mortified, I sucked in my belly. “I’m not pregnant, Lorenzo.”
“Oh, darling, I am so sorry.” He smiled, showing a mouthful of teeth so bright you could read by them at night. “I truly didn’t mean to humiliate you.”
“Come on,” I said, pulling Tremaynne away from Fokke’s harangue. “Let’s go kick some ass.”
As the seven homophobes brayed their slogans, Wendell Tuttle from the symphony sat playing his huge gold harp near a rhododendron bush. It was so weird: a party and a protest in one. Like some new kind of performance art. Love and hate, hand in hand.
My old girlfriend, JD, provocative as ever, stepped in front of me with her arms spread. She was wearing the teeniest miniskirt I’d ever seen and huge platforms, like those tottering Japanese girls in Tokyo. “Hey Venus,” she said, ignoring Tremaynne and pulling me into a kissy embrace. “Let’s get hitched like your dads.”
“Isn’t it kind of early in the morning for Ecstasy?” It had to be drugs talking because JD undrugged was terrified of intimacy. That’s why I had to break up with her. It was like making love to a Popsicle.
She caught sight of a news-cam pointed at us and pulled me closer, posing like it was a photo op. “I’m JD, and I used to be with Black Garters, but now I’m lead singer with Go-Go Girls. And this lovely girl next to me is Venus Gilroy. She’s the daughter of the dads.”
“Daughter of the Dads?” The newsman was confused. “Is that a band?”
JD laughed. “No, stupid, the dads are her dads. You know, like her male parents. They’re coming here today to get married.”