by Emily Tilton
“I have a feeling,” Luke continued, “that Commander Burton will follow my suggestion about keeping you naked at home. But that doesn’t mean that when he takes you out, you won’t have to get used to wearing attractive, feminine clothing.”
Her lips parted slightly, and Luke could see he had again diagnosed her correctly. The pink spots got larger. Now in Lily’s eyes he thought he could almost see the warring instincts: the way her deep psyche responded with yearning to the atavistic feminine idea of being a lovely adornment to a dashing commander, while her conscious mind rebelled against it.
She closed her mouth, and her face hardened again. To Luke’s surprise, she turned to Rebecca, who had come up to stand beside her, and said with great politeness, “Thank you very much, Mrs. Smith. I know you were only doing what you had to do.”
“You’re very welcome, Miss James,” Rebecca said. “Thank you for being a good girl for me, even though I know it must have been very embarrassing. I know you’ll make a good wife for the commander.”
The blush had gone, but now it again returned with extreme rosiness, and Dr. Thayer said, “Ah, a blushing bride. There’s no prettier sight in the world as far as I’m concerned.” Lily looked daggers at him, but the director seemed not to take the slightest notice. “Shall we go? We wouldn’t want to keep the commander waiting—let alone the president!”
* * *
The settlers of Meliora, as most settlers do, showed a marked nostalgia for the home from which they had ventured forth. Even in the darkest years of post-collapse Earth, the elegance of old European culture had kept its hold on the human imagination, and its continuing sway had manifested itself with great clarity here in the state chambers of Meliora’s chief executive. Gilt furniture and tapestries depicting both old Earth and the early days of Meliora dominated the visitor’s vision as he or she entered the spacious entry hall with its high, coffered ceiling.
All Melioran children who lived within a hundred kilometers of the capital came to the seat of government for a school field trip, so Lily had been here before. Her face as the two doctors escorted her in, now, like dual fathers of the bride, nevertheless showed an admiration Luke presumed she had not demonstrated at age ten. Even if she hadn’t had a submissive’s yearning to feel the governing touch of authority, mingled with the paradoxically delicious fear of what that touch would mean for her, the idea of being married by the president in his state chambers probably would have impressed her, loner and hacker though she had always thought herself.
Outside the door of the inner sanctum of President Wanamaker’s office, called the Lacquer Room for its spectacular ancient lacquered furniture brought all the way from Earth, from the region once called China, the president waited with Commander Burton. A little to the side stood a woman, dressed like the president and the commander in a suit and holding a handheld. Luke could tell immediately that she came from the press office.
As the doctors, with Rebecca Smith to help the bride with any garment-related difficulties that might arise, led Lily to the place that would serve her as—in the old phrase—the marital altar, Luke saw that the two men felt very much at ease in one another’s company, while the public-relations woman stood deferentially by, hanging on every word either man spoke. Again Luke had to envy Burton: Luke thought the president a good man and a good president, but he couldn’t imagine feeling relaxed enough in his presence to wear the easy smile the commander had upon his face.
“…see how we’re doing when we get back from the mountains,” the commander was saying.
“Sure, sure,” the president replied. “But the offer stands. You’re the kind of guy whose company I really value. There aren’t enough of you around.” He turned to the approaching wedding party. “Good afternoon, Dr. Thayer. Thanks so much for bringing this lovely bride over.”
“My pleasure, Mr. President. May I present Dr. Luke Fredrickson, Mrs. Rebecca Smith, and of course Miss Lily James?”
The president bowed to each person introduced, in turn. To Lily he also put out his hand. Lily, with a visible tremble, took it.
“Very nice to meet you, Miss James,” he said in the voice that had won him two elections. He released Lily’s hand and turned to the woman with the handheld. “This is Mrs. Sheila Lowry, from the press office. She’ll be writing up our release about the wedding.”
Mrs. Lowry said, “Pleasure to meet you all.” Her voice had an element of brusqueness in it that Luke knew well from ten years of government service. Mrs. Lowry would run the show. “We’ll have a quick statement from the president, and then we’ll go into the Lacquer Room for the actual ceremony. I’ll get just a few words from the bride and groom, and then from Dr. Thayer.”
The director interrupted. “Dr. Fredrickson should field a question or two as well, I think. He’s the one who’s responsible for this match.” Luke smiled at the compliment; Dr. Thayer had no special brilliance as a physician, but he did very well by those who worked for him.
“Certainly,” Mrs. Lowry said, making a note on her handheld.
Luke glanced over at Lily. She seemed dazed, as Luke felt sure he would also seem, were he in her white pumps. As he watched, though, she turned her eyes to Commander Burton, and Luke saw a tiny smile creep onto her face—one he felt sure she would hope no one else had seen. He looked at the commander to see whether he could discern anything in Burton that might have provoked his bride to soften toward him, and saw that Burton, instead of having his attention on Mrs. Lowry or President Wanamaker, had turned his own smile upon Lily. Luke suddenly felt very sure that just a moment before he himself could see it, the commander had winked at the girl he would soon marry.
Am I nothing but a matchmaker? Luke asked himself, bemused. If I am, I’m a good one, even under disciplinary circumstances.
But now Burton had turned his eyes to the president, and Lily, Luke saw, had done the same, the smile gone and the recollection of the coercion involved in this ceremony clearly back at the front of her mind.
“I’m really pleased to have Commander Eric Burton of the colonial peacekeeping force here today in what I like to call the people’s house—the state chambers of your Melioran administration,” the president began, as Mrs. Lowry held her handheld so as to catch her boss’ every rhetorical flourish. Luke could never get over how little politicians could say with so many words.
“We’re here for a happy occasion—one that’s even happier because it’s a happiness that comes from difficult, unhappy circumstances. We’re here for the marriage of Miss Lily James to Commander Burton, a man of proven leadership ability and remarkable bravery, who’s taken upon himself the challenge of a marriage under disciplinary circumstances.”
Luke could see in Burton’s easy smile no trace of vanity—or really even of pride: he was the man he was. Lily, on the other hand, had flinched at the words difficult, unhappy circumstances.
“Miss James, a gifted computer scientist, but unfortunately also a young woman who’s gone a little astray, tried to tamper with the database of the Global Socionomic Bureau. With the help of Dr. Quentin Thayer, director of the bureau, and Dr.…” Luke felt only amusement at the pause as Mrs. Lowry had to refer to her handheld to whisper into the president’s ear, “…Luke Fredrickson, a bureau physician, though, we quickly matched her up with a man whose experience in the world gives him the wisdom and skill necessary to set his young bride on a constructive path, to a bright future for herself and her community.”
The we rankled a little for Luke, and the verbiage continued to amaze him, but he certainly couldn’t disagree with anything the president said.
“I’ve invited them here to the people’s house to be married by me, in the Lacquer Room, because I’m hoping I can encourage more men like Commander Burton to take up the challenge of these disciplinary marriages, and of course also because I think it’s important young women understand their options when it comes to the matches made by the database. Lily James rejected two suitors, and then tried to
hack the database. Here she is, and I want to use the occasion to make the law as clear as I can: when a girl like Lily refuses to see that sometimes someone else knows better than she does what will make her happy, we have no choice but to place her in the care of a more responsible person, and to give him the authority to discipline her as necessary. I’ve just been talking to the commander, and I can assure the bride, and everyone in the commonwealth, that Miss Lily James can expect to go over her husband’s knee as often as necessary for some old-fashioned bare-bottom marital guidance.”
Chapter Nine
Eric didn’t feel completely sure that the president’s words would benefit Lily in the end, but he also didn’t mind undertaking to work through any ill effects that resulted. Her face had of course gone bright red at discipline her as necessary, but then all the color had drained from it when the president revealed to the entire world that Lily would receive frequent spanking as the wife of Commander Eric Burton. Eric knew a great many of the women who heard this little address in the media release would envy Lily, but he also knew that fact didn’t make much difference: he would still have to bring his virgin bride around to thinking of this humiliation as, in its own way, a reason to feel a certain special triumph in her marriage.
He had to admit that the president’s need to score political points off Eric’s marriage annoyed him, though. Eric, somewhat to his surprise, had felt his heart beat a little faster as his bride came toward him across the state chamber, and when she had smiled at his wink it had skipped a beat. Lily might well take her own good time feeling real affection for him, but the idea that she would belong to him in a few minutes and that he would have the chance to take care of her, and to bring her to love him as she got to know him better, made him want to shut out the president, the woman from the press office, and the doctors from the bureau and take his bride in his arms.
Still, to have the gratitude of a man like John Wanamaker, whom Eric certainly admired despite the limitations imposed by the president having in the end to be a politician, was worth a good deal of annoyance. And it appeared that Wanamaker had finished his prefatory remarks. He turned to Eric, and then to Lily, with a bland smile on his face.
“Shall we go in?” he asked. “I’m sure you’d like to move things along, Commander, though perhaps your bride’s feelings are a little more mixed.”
At least the president didn’t feel the need to go back again to the reasons for Lily’s ambivalence, which her blushes and the resentful look she now cast at Eric showed so clearly. Wanamaker led the way into the Lacquer Room. The space itself was much smaller than the vast hall from which they had come, but the ceiling here was also high, and the many large windows overlooking the public gardens and letting in the sunlight to play among the shiny, almost-glowing chairs and tables and inlaid chests, drawing the eye inexorably to the president’s elegant mahogany desk at the far end of the room, created an effect just as grand.
Wanamaker walked down the room to that desk and turned around, gesturing for Lily and Eric to join him. The rest of the party stood in a semicircle around them. Eric looked into Lily’s face. Mrs. Smith had lowered her blusher, and to see his bride’s eyes through that sweet film of lace transported him back to some romantic past. Her look was almost angry at first, but Eric smiled as warmly as he knew how, and Lily’s brow seemed to soften, if only for a moment, as she looked up at him.
“It’s my honor,” said the president, “to unite this man, Eric Burton, to this woman, Lily James, in the bonds of legal marriage. Eric and Lily, please take each other’s right hand in your own.”
Just as he had felt his heart lift in the lobby of the socionomic bureau when he had extended his hands to Lily for their first kiss, Eric felt it seem to rise in his chest as he followed the president’s instruction. At the contact of his rough, sun-darkened skin with Lily’s cool, pale fingers, he felt something that seemed almost electric pass through him, and he saw that she felt it, too—perhaps even despite herself.
Lily’s eyes went wide for a moment, then narrowed again, but not—it seemed to Eric—in anger. She seemed to be trying to sort through feelings so mixed she couldn’t begin to untangle them. Eric tried to tell her, with his eyes, that he vowed to help with the untangling, but he knew that the process would hardly be a smooth one even given all the good will in the world. A longing to be alone with his bride, to sit her on his knee and have their first real talk, rose inside him. He had promised her that spanking for her language, but after that, and before bed, there would be time to talk about what their marriage meant to both of them.
Melioran weddings were a simple affair, at least. Eric and Lily would be on their way soon.
“Eric, will you have Lily for your wife? Will you care for her? Will you honor her and respect her as she deserves?” As she deserves. Eric couldn’t remember having considered the conditional implications of those words before, or through his all-too-brief marriage with Serena. If Lily decided to be a good girl for her husband, she would deserve all the honor and respect in the galaxy, but if not…
“I will,” Eric said. Lily’s face did two things at once, as he made his promise: she seemed both to flinch and to smile, and the effect charmed Eric utterly. He gave her hand a little squeeze, and to his delight she squeezed back, just a bit.
“Lily, will you have Eric for your husband? Will you care for him? Will you honor and respect him as he deserves?”
The Melioran promises were egalitarian: the archaic obey had never been a part of them, the way it had made its way back into the customs of other colonized worlds as the new societies grappled with the thorny problems of gender relations. But Eric found again that the idea of deserving had a new and important meaning, in the context of this disciplinary marriage: he would deserve the obedience implied in the words for your husband, and in honor and respect. He would deserve it by taking his bride firmly in hand, the way she needed him to do.
Lily swallowed hard, turning her eyes first to the president and then back to Eric. He suddenly wondered whether he would indeed have to spank her here in the Lacquer Room, and the certainty that he wouldn’t hesitate, along with the arousing image of what it would look like, with the whole wedding party—including the president of the commonwealth—looking on, made his cock give a little leap inside his suit pants.
“I will,” she said quietly, and her lips remained slightly parted as if she had almost gone on to say something else, like even though I don’t want to.
Eric started slightly as Dr. Thayer’s hand, holding a gold ring, came into his field of vision. Serena hadn’t worn a wedding ring, nor did most Melioran wives or husbands, but Eric supposed in a punishment marriage the bureau must recommend it. He released Lily’s hand and took the ring.
“Repeat after me,” the president said. “With this ring, Lily, I thee wed.”
Such archaic words—reinforcing again the continuing presence of the technically absent obey, Eric supposed. Lily would wear a ring to show she belonged to a man who had taken responsibility for her in every way.
“With this ring, Lily,” he said, putting the ring gently on her left hand, “I thee wed.”
“Then by the authority vested in me as chief magistrate by the Commonwealth of Meliora, I pronounce you husband and wife.”
Eric transferred Lily’s left hand into his own, and used his right to lift her veil. Her face, though her lips held no smile, seemed to him now to hold a hopeful expression, as if having uttered her I will without adding any expression of reluctance, whether out of fear of having a spanking there in the Lacquer Room or because perhaps she didn’t feel quite so much reluctance here in the presence of a bridegroom sincere in his promise to care for her, she found in her heart a desire to see what good things might now befall her.
He took both her hands in his own, then, just as he had done in the bureau’s lobby and leaned down. He kissed her, feeling her lips seem to yield just a little more than they had done before, and thinking that perhaps she
’d tilted her head just a little more, as if inviting an even deeper kiss than he could give there in front of the president.
A smattering of applause rippled through the little wedding party, and then Eric, still holding Lily’s left hand in his right, turned to them. “Thank you all for coming, on behalf of Mrs. Burton as well.”
He squeezed Lily’s hand as he said Mrs. Burton, and felt her tremble. She made a little sound in her throat, too, as if silencing a protest. But Eric thought there was no use in circumlocution: she was Lily Burton, now, and thus she would now be known.
Mrs. Lowry moved to them with alacrity. “Congratulations, Commander and Mrs. Burton,” she said, with a falseness that Eric thought must not have any malice behind it but must rather simply be an unavoidable part of her job. “There’s a limousine outside, I know, waiting to take you for your bureau-subsidized honeymoon in the mountains, and I won’t keep you for long.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Lowry,” Eric replied. “We’d appreciate that.” He looked over at Lily, every trace of whose pleasant, hopeful demeanor seemed to be gone now. She was looking at Mrs. Lowry with an expression that Eric found very unbecoming of a just-married bride. He sighed inwardly, but it seemed very clear to him what he had to do. “Lily, wouldn’t you appreciate that, too?”
She turned to look at him with a puzzled crease in her brow, as if she had no idea what he meant—no, as if Eric were crazy. He suppressed his anger as he glanced at Mrs. Lowry and saw that a small smile played across the lips of the woman from the press office. Mrs. Lowry clearly hoped now to see an example of how Commander Eric Burton would take his bride in hand.
He turned back to his new wife and spoke with authority. “Lily, I don’t want to have to treat you like a child, but it’s important to be polite, especially today of all days. I need you to be a gracious bride, and then we can get going.”