Janet looked down the aisle at Brad standing there, handsome in his tuxedo, smiling and waiting for her. She was dressed in white, although she wasn't sure at all that she felt right about that. Yet the music was playing and it was time for her to walk down the aisle, so she gripped her father's arm and they began the journey.
The walk down the aisle seemed to take a very long time. Ralph and Betty were there, smiling happily, along with many of the same guests who had attended their own wedding not so terribly long ago. Dr. Scott was there in his wheelchair, and so was Janet's mother and Brad's parents, all of them looking pleased, happy for her.
If only they knew...
"Dearly beloved," the minister began. Brad's eyes were shining with love as he looked at his bride. She smiled up at him, optimistic, hopeful. Maybe everything will be all right after all.
"Do you take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife?"
"I do," Brad replied with no hesitation.
He lifted her veil and kissed her, and then they left the church with their guests cheering and throwing rice.
"Well, we did it!" Brad said proudly as they drove toward the motel.
"Are you happy Brad?"
"Of course I am." He gave her a look of concern. "Aren't you?"
"Very much so."
"Well, all right then." Brad switched on the car radio and scanned the dial, finally stopping on a news program. Janet would have preferred a music station, but she didn't say anything.
For the rest of the ride to the motel they chatted about ordinary, mundane things, the weather, the latest news stories, what their friends had been up to lately. Neither mentioned the events of that fateful night, but it was very much on both of their minds.
For dinner they stopped at a nice restaurant. "A toast...to us," Brad said, raising his glass. Janet had almost expected him to say "To absent friends."
That night she waited for him in the negligee she had bought especially for this night, her heart pounding in anticipation. This time it would be Brad, the man she loved...certainly it would be different from both the time with Frankie and the time with Rocky. That first time, with Frankie, she had been frightened and angry, and yet...aroused. The next time, with Rocky...that hadn't been planned at all, had been a spur of the moment decision based on both pity for the poor creature and...a fire inside her that Frankie had lit that was still burning.
Brad was remembering the sensation of Frankie's lips and tongue all over him, how wonderfully wet it had felt. He felt himself becoming incredibly aroused just by the memory of it, and yet...he couldn't ask Janet to do that, could he, especially not the first time.
Brad emerged from the bathroom wearing only his robe, which had a sash tied around the waist. He saw Janet waiting for him in her negligee, wearing a lusty smile, and it excited him all the more. He came to her and began to remove the negligee awkwardly. She helped him with the straps, and soon she was completely undressed. She pulled the sash of his robe and it came untied instantly.
"Oh, my...come here, you big boy."
He shrugged the robe off his shoulders, and it fell to the floor.
Janet's hands were all over him, expertly stroking him in just the right places. He lay on the bed beside her, parting her legs, his fingers eagerly searching for her most sensitive areas. He began to stroke her, clumsily at first, until her moans of pleasure let him know that he was doing it right. She pulled him over on top of her and at last he entered her for the first time.
For both of them it was a healing experience, Brad's first encounter of that kind with a woman, Janet's first with a man whom she loved and trusted. Their mutual fear that things could never really be right between them seemed abated as, with overwhelming relief, they both slowly drifted off to sleep on their honeymoon night.