Epilogue #4
After an extra chorus, the Elvi blow kisses at me before they load up in the Cadillac and the SUVs. In a mismatched cavalcade, we roll out to the chapel. The driver puts on “Can’t Help Falling In Love” and I sing with my attendants, smiling through my tears.
We’re the last car to pull up at the chapel, which I sense is by design.
The Elvi are waiting to escort us in. They’re witnesses—not that we don’t already have dozens of witnesses—but it was part of Master Niall’s deal with them.
They surround my limo, preventing me from seeing what’s going on in the parking lot, while they sing “Blue Hawaii” and “Can’t Help Falling In Love.
” By the time they open the limo door and help me out, the parking lot’s full of cars but empty of people.
I glare at Cynnie and Vashi, who just giggle.
The Elvi clearly deal with a lot of brides.
They help me get my train straight and one of them carries it for me so it doesn’t snag on the lot’s asphalt.
Master Niall beams at me, his smile brighter than the rhinestones on his white outfit, as he holds his arm out for Vashi.
In a double-phalanx like they’re guarding the President, the Elvi escort me inside and into a small room with round tables and chairs.
It's hard to sit in my tutu without showing the whole world the color of my panties (pale blue, although not borrowed) but I have to because my knees are knocking together so hard. It’s not that I’m scared.
How could I be scared of marrying my forever-Daddy?
It’s just all the emotion of the moment.
I don’t think I’ve been this crazy emotional since before my first period.
There’s nothing to be scared of but I’m shaking all over.
I want this. I’ve thought about it for months.
I’ve planned it down to the small details.
Is it that I don’t want it to be over too soon?
Is that why my hands are shaking so hard that I have to set the small bouquet of white and gold paper flowers I crafted with the Littles’ Army on the table to avoid dropping it?
Vashi kneels next to me, using one hand to tuck the skirt of her gorgeous pink and red sari under her legs and the other to flip back the flare of her cape so it’s not caught under her butt. She takes my hands in hers.
“It’s okay to be nervous,” she says, squeezing my fingers. “I was most nervous on my wedding day.”
“I don’t have anything to be nervous about,” I wail. “I’m just so emotional.”
My attendants cluster around me, patting me and saying “aww.” Several of them are teary, too.
The officiant, a very portly Elvis, comes in to speak to me and get me to sign something. I have no idea what I say to him but it seems to be the right thing because he bustles away smiling.
“Is Daddy definitely here?” I ask Vashi, even though I know it’s a ridiculous question.
“Do you want Master to check?” she responds, humoring me.
I nod. “It’s stupid.”
Niall sweeps down to kiss me on the cheek, his bright red quiff quivering. “Nothing’s stupid on your wedding day. Shaan and I were old hands at the wedding thing by the time we married Vashi and I still sent our best man to check on her about a hundred times.”
I laugh tearily.
“Did he really?” I ask when he leaves.
Vashi nods. “Men are so silly. Where was I going to go? Shaan had my plane ticket.”
Everyone laughs.
Master Niall returns after less than a minute. “There’s a bloke down the hall who resembles your daddy, except he’s a wee bit green around the gills. Think he might be waiting for you. Ready for your surprise?”
I nod.
Niall opens the door. Brenna and True walk in.
Bren has a white wicker basket over her arm.
True’s carrying Livvy. All three of them are dressed in long gowns, flesh-toned at the top with beaded sea-shells cupped over their breasts.
Their skirts are layers of blue and green.
Livvy kicks her feet in a froth of ocean gauze.
Mermaids. They’re mermaids.
The tears run. I can’t help it.
Bren smiles at me as her own tears start.
I rush to her. “You can’t cry. You’re a mermaid. Mermaid tears are precious.”
She hugs me, careful of my scaled cape. “You’re precious. Get out there. Logan’s going to faint before he even sees you and I can’t let Sir win a hundred dollars.”
“I’m ready,” I tell her, even though I’m not. I have no idea if I can make it down the aisle. Maybe it’s good we have a lot of attendants. They can carry me.
Bren turns, showing the jewel-toned mermaid and baby among the tattoos on her upper back, and walks out into the corridor, beckoning True after her.
Master Mac steps in around her, giving her a quick kiss and a smack on the ass as they pass each other.
He’s wearing a morning suit in dove gray, his tie and cummerbund rippling with blue and green to match the mermaids.
He takes off his top hat and bows to me. “Come on, sweetheart.”
I nod since I can’t manage one word.
We line up. Sammi first, then Aggie, then Yummy, then Laurel, then Cynnie and Vashi, arm-in-arm since their Doms are co-best-men.
Daisy helps arrange my veil over my face, careful not to snag it on my tiara. I know a veil is super-traditional and patriarchal but I didn’t wear a veil when I married Ash and I want this wedding to be as unlike that one as possible.
Daisy offers me her arm. She’s wearing a suit similar to Mac’s, only hers has a leather mini-skirt that shows off her long legs, and a pink tie and cummerbund. Her outrageously high, velvet platforms are the same hot pink. I love her movie-star sense of style.
On my other side, Mac offers me his arm. Daisy scoops my bouquet off the table and passes it to me. I realize she’s wrapped a white linen hankie around the bottom of the bouquet.
I sniffle at her gratefully.
Between my Best Mommy Domme and the Mac Granddaddy, I walk out into the hallway. Bren and True stand on either side of the closed door to the chapel itself. I can hear the faint strains of “Ode to Joy.” Daddy’s choice. Because of all the joy I bring to his life, he said.
I blink through fresh tears.
With a wink at me, Bren opens the door. True and Livvy walk through first, Livvy burbling and kicking.
Bren follows them, handing out tiny bouquets of white paper roses right and left into the audience as she goes.
My eyes follow her motion. At first, I think the Elvi are taking up the back rows.
Then my eyes catch on an imperiously gray-quiffed Elvis. Mistress Maude grins at me.
Elvi. A whole sea of Elvi in brilliant white jumpsuits with flashing rhinestones. Short, tall, Mistress Dana whip-slim, Master Harold barrel-chested in his open white shirt. Queen Twitch’s crown matches the jumpsuit’s rhinestones. Elvi everywhere. They’ve all come as Elvis.
I begin giggling.
Sammi follows Brenna, holding his arms out so his aquamarine cape, attached at his wrists, flares open behind him.
Spreading into wings.
My flight proceeds down the aisle, flaring their wings: blue-green, purple, orange, emerald, yellow, and red.
I try to be a fierce, white, baby dragon as Daisy and Mac propel me forward but really I’m a sobbing baby dragon. Everyone stands as I walk down the aisle, which I’m not prepared for. A lot of them wave and smile at me. I try to smile back even as I blubber.
As Cynnie and Vashi move to the left at the end of the aisle, I finally see the people waiting for me.
A bald Elvis. A red-haired Elvis. A nerd Elvis wearing a shirt that says, “Are You Lonesome Tonight?” over the IP address for a well-known porn site.
An Elvis wearing a black, red, and gold jumpsuit instead of the white jumpsuits that fill the audience.
An Elvis that’s powder-blue head to toe.
A dreadlocked Elvis. A GI Elvis at the end.
I smile tearily at all of them.
GI Elvis salutes and the Elvi part neatly.
My Dark Knight steps forward through the Elvi gap.
My heart thumps so hard in my chest it bruises my ribs.
Daddy’s wearing black leather. I’ve seen him in black leather before, of course but this is seriously hot black leather: boots, leather pants that show off his sculpted thighs, a waistcoat that buttons up to his chin.
He’s not wearing a shirt under the waistcoat and his muscled, bare arms show under the edges of a cape with a high collar that frames his face.
The leather of the cape and waistcoat are tooled into scales. In one hand he carries a golden leash.
Dragon-Tamer Daddy.
Daisy and Mac stop in front of him. Mac takes my bouquet as Daisy folds my veil back. They pat me before they move away to join the other attendants.
Daddy’s dark eyes slide down me, taking in my tiara with its tiny, pink-jeweled horns, my winged cape covered in golden-edged scales and decorated with iridescent white sequins, the matching bustier and train, the white tutu edged with pink ribbon that falls mid-thigh, revealing my old pink and white stripey thigh-highs held up with a borrowed garter.
With Daddy’s hot, wolfy gaze on me, my knees give out. I drop onto them.
Daddy takes a step forward and clicks the hook of the leash through my collar. “Mine.”
“Yours, Daddy,” I whisper.
He holds out his hand. I take it and try to stand but I’m shaking all over. He draws me into his arms. “Hug me, little girl. Hug your Daddy and know that everything’s okay. I love you so much. Nothing will make me prouder than making you my little wife.”
I swallow the huge lump of tears in my throat. “I love you, too, and I want to be your wife, I’m just super-emotional.”
He kisses my forehead gently. “Me, too, sweetheart. My knees are knocking together so hard they’re going to cause an earthquake.”
I giggle. “Not as hard as mine.”
“Twice as hard as yours. C’mon, baby. I got a ring with your name on it. You want it?”
I have one for him, too. “So much, Daddy.”
“I think Bald Elvis wants a word.”