Taboo: A Memoir Ch. 13-14

With feeling-filled eyes, we turned facing. "Diana," I told her, "I take you for my wife, and I pledge you my love and devotion for the rest of my life."

"Tom," she told me, "I take you for my husband, and I pledge you my love and devotion for the rest of my life." Her damp eyes glistened.

I took out the rings and held her hand in mine. We had decided to wear them on the ring finger of the right hand, where Europeans wear their wedding bands. "My beautiful bride, heart of my heart, flesh of my flesh, I give myself to you." As if making love to her, I slipped the ring onto her finger.

Diana held my hand in hers. "My wonderful husband, heart of my heart, flesh of my flesh, I give myself to you." She slipped the ring onto my finger. The unity I felt was like a spiritual orgasm.

We held our ringed hands up together to the world. "We're married!"

"You may kiss the bride," Diana announced, and I did, first lightly on the lips, then holding her tightly and kissing her fully. She was mine now in a deeper way, thanks to our ritual. Blissed out, we hugged each other.

We took out the camera and tripod and set them up. After much twisting of dials and peering through the viewfinder, things seemed to be right. I clicked the time release and scurried back beside my wife in time to say "sex" to the camera. We shot up a roll of film this way, kissing, waving, and hugging the tree.

"These photos we'll keep," Diana said.

"If they turn out," I added.

Ready to leave, we tossed brown rice over each other and threw the rest to the ducks, who quacked their best wishes.

We walked to Fifth Avenue and flagged down another cab—same dirty yellow, different driver, same accent, same Mets game. He took us to La Mer, where I got to show off my first-year French by ordering for us. Diana had scallops in cream Pernod sauce, and I had mussels in sherry broth. The mussels reminded me of her undersea cavern: pink frills around a plump center, slick inner walls of the shells with mossy sea weed clinging to the outside, oceany tastes and smells. Delicious.

We had dessert back at the hotel, our own little wedding cake with bride and groom dolls. We fed each other with our fingers and licked the frosting off. Then we cried a little because all this had to be secret, we couldn't share it with anyone. Our isolation made us cling to each other more intensely.

I took her hand with a grave look. "My dear wife, I wanted to wait until after the wedding to tell you this...so you wouldn't back out."

She looked at me alarmed. "What is it?"

"After people are married," I said hesitantly, "they do things...to each other...with their bodies."

She smiled; her eyes widened. "What do they do, my dear hubby?"

"They...well it sounds shocking, but...they take off each other's clothes. Then...the man has something...that he puts inside the woman."

She was appalled. "No! What is it?"

"I'll have to show it to you."

"Don't show me! Nobody ever told me about that. Who said that's how it has to be?" Her expression became suspicious. "Are you sure you're not just making this up?"

"All the girls have to do it. It's the terrible thing no one talks about." I laid the little groom on top of the bride.

Diana grimaced and covered her eyes. "The terrible thing! And you're going to make me do it?"

"Yes."

"When?"

"Right now."

She moved her hand up to her forehead; her face contorted with dread. "Oh no! I thought you were different. I didn't think you were like all those other men."

"'Fraid not."

"You're going to strip me naked. And put that thing inside me! And I have to take it...a poor defenseless girl."

"'Fraid so."

She threw up her arms, forlorn. "Now I see why women cry at weddings. Why didn't anyone tell me?"

"Because you wouldn't have done it."

"That's true! No one would do it. But now it's too late. Then take me, you brute!" She stood like a helpless captive.

I unbuttoned her dress and motioned her to do the same to my shirt. She bit her lip and complied.

As our bodies emerged, we forgot our game and got into disrobing as ritual. Each new body part made us more celebratory. What the clothes were hiding was much more beautiful than the cloth.

Mom lit two candles by the bed. Giving me her wicked look, she asked, "Should I light a stick of incest...I mean, incense?"

I moved in closer and touched her rump. "You're lighting up this stick of mine."

She put her hand on it. "Come here, you bold boy. Let me see it glow."

We caressed each other eagerly. "Hello, wife," I whispered in her ear. "Now we get to do it."

"Hello, hubby. I've got a little present for you first." From her purse she took a small box and showed me two pendants on chains. Each was a golden heart with the tip turning into an arrow that curved out to the side then back in to re-enter the heart at its center, where a ruby was set. The arrow had a hint of phallus about it, and the heart of vulva.

"They're beautiful! Did you design them?"

Mom nodded. "You see, the arrow returns from where it emerged. I call it, the heart that touches its own." She turned them over; on the back of one was engraved "Diana" and on the other "Tom." She picked up the one with her name and fastened the chain around my neck.

I clasped the one with my name around her neck; it hung between her breasts. I realized again how much this woman loved me. "Such a wonderful gift. Thank you." I was so moved I could hardly speak.

We each touched our ring to the other's pendant, ruby to ruby. Diana put her hand over my heart. "There's something they say in the Church of England wedding vows: 'With my body I thee worship.'"

I touched her heart and repeated to her: "With my body I thee worship."

We kissed with a holy mix of reverence and lust. Our love now had a spiritual dimension, thanks to our ceremony. Diana lay back on the waterbed. "Now take me, Tom, take me forever. Don't ever leave me. Do this to me always."

By now we were so turned on that foreplay would've been frustration—I entered her. "My mother, my wife...thank you for marrying me."

"My son, my husband...thank you for wanting me." She raised her hips to make room.

Slowly, regally, we moved through swarms of love. We flowed around each other in a seeking dance of merging flesh, touching our tender quicks. Our hearts swelled closer and closer. We were making love, manufacturing it in our own little floating factory. Each movement on the waterbed spread out and reverberated back to us in interactive waves. We were awash and aslosh in each other, jostling and wobbling, swaying and rolling. Mom was already so cushiony and springy, and lying on top of her on top of the waterbed doubled the effect. We were rowing on a great lake of love.

Filling her physically wasn't enough, I wanted to fill her also with my feelings, a message that would touch her deep inside. "My dear bride, we've been through so much together. We've had so many struggles...to have our love...and now to be husband and wife...to be able to do this...and keep doing it...to keep touching each other deep like this."

I wanted to press my words into her heart. "We've won...we didn't let the world stop us...our love is stronger than that world."

Her hips were rising to my thrusts and her heart was rising to my words. Her face was overflowing with affection.

"Now we get to keep doing this...we get to keep loving each other...we've earned the right to lie down like this and I put my thing inside you...and you hold on to me...and we move in and out together...and I get to look down at you and see how beautiful you are. Now we get to do this for the rest of our lives, my dear wife."

While talking, I was pistoning mom in long slow strokes that made her groan and shudder. Tears of love were streaming down her face. She lay totally open, taking my words and my body in.

"Now I'm going to give you my sperm. Ah...I want to, I need to do that. It came out of you...now it's going back in. Everything in me came out of you. My cock loves to go back in and give you its sperm."

"Yes," she murmured almost incoherently, "I want it...I need it...I need you." Her belly was sliding back and forth under mine.

My balls, bouncing against her fur, began to tighten and pump. All my energy, all my being, swelled and flowed and thrust and burst into her, throbbing with streams of delight.

Mom undulated in long rolling waves of orgasm, spasming at her depths around my spurting fullness. She wrapped her arms and legs around me, clasped me to her, and we rocked in oceans of each other.

"Love...you," I burbled around her breast.

"Love you too," she whispered in my ear.