[Author's note: the principal characters continue from Mars Memoirs, Ch.1]
"Oh, be still," Oona scolds. Despite the fiery sparks in my hypersensitive, over-stimulated penis, I suppress my squirming as she works the condom off me, taking care to capture every drop. After tying a knot in the end of the rubber, she holds it up, eyeing the pool of semen, hefting it. She smiles at my balls as she takes them in hand, and says, to them, not me, "Not bad, boys, but I'm sure you'll do better next time."
My eyes pop open at the slight shaking. Oona's image shimmers, then fades into the ether, and I realize where I am.
Jostled awake by the harmless impacts as the ship streams through a meteor shower, I know that I'm lying in my slumber tube, inside the nuclear-powered spaceship traveling to Mars at over 30,000 mph in its Hoeman Transfer Orbit. As I slip back into my drug-induced hibernation, scenes from my past flash by like trees when speeding through a forest at night. As I breathe in the rose-scented gas that keeps me comatose, I wait for the recollection I want -- a way to rejoin Oona -- and grab on. As the memory plays from the beginning, my wedding and its aftermath come to life before my eyes.
***
"Do you, Mary, take John to be your lawfully wedded husband?"
Mary's muted affirmative is truncated by her sob.
"By the power vested in me by God and the state, I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss."
Mary turns her face aside, away from me and the assemblage of our friends and families, and my lips land on her cheek. It is wet. I lower her veil to hide her running makeup and we walk arm in arm down the aisle and out of the church, to begin our lives of wedded bliss.
"What kind of bride weeps at her own wedding?" one clueless guest stage-whispers as we exit.
I bite my tongue rather than reply: "The kind whose greatest friend and lover, her actual betrothed, had had her ashes spread just months ago."
The cancer that took Kyla was so virulent that it was all over in three months. Mary and I, acceding to her last, most fervent wish, were now married, but the mere fact of being in each other's presence was agonizing, reminding us constantly of who was missing, the woman we both had loved more than life itself.
We'd had nearly a year of true bliss, the three of us living together, sexing together, sleeping together, cooking together, traveling together. We made such wonderful plans -- Paris, Venice, Mardi Gras, RAGBRI -- but they all proved for naught.
As the weeks after our wedding dragged into months, Mary and I became perfect companions. United in our grief, we shared almost everything: interests, opinions, political views, and love of cooking, fine food, wine, music, opera, art, movies, the theatre, reading and travel. Everything but sex. Mary's lesbian bent had been exacerbated by Kyla's death, and I was in such sorrow that my libido went as flaccid as my cock. Counselors were helping each of us, but the process dragged on, endlessly, it seemed. Mary's sexual reawakening occurred with Nan, but that's coming in Chapter 4. Mine was due to Oona's and Mary's connivance.
Mary's good friend, Oona Leblanc, had recently suffered through a nasty divorce, and setting up a new house by herself found her lacking the skills to do some of what her worthless, cheating husband had done previously. Like hang curtains.
Days in advance Mary had asked if I'd mind helping Oona out. That they planned on more for me than some minor carpentry was not mentioned, nor was the truly quirky nature of what was in store. Of course I was happy to be of assistance, so at the appointed hour, 1:30 on that designated Saturday, I grabbed my toolbox, hopped in the car and was chez Oona in no time. The curtains turned out to be Venetian blinds, a good choice I thought, as curtains often strike me as dowdy, and Oona is anything but.
Oona is spectacular. An arresting five-foot eight-inch specter whose long, luminous, unruly raven mane parts naturally on the right side and cascades freely to the tops of her perfect, upturned breasts. Full eyebrows accent the darkest brown, nearly black eyes, whose alluring power is not diminished in the least by stylish, oversize glasses perched on her strong, narrow nose. Prominent cheekbones and concave cheeks abet her ethereal aura, despite full, sensuous lips that always seem pursed in an intriguing, introspective half smile. Except for those rare times when her innate reserve relaxes, allowing her amorous, hot-blooded core to bubble up and transform everything. Then the world is suddenly alive, enthralling, replete with possibility. Such a smile greeted me at the door that Saturday.
The blinds went up easily -- I have skills -- and Oona asked me if I'd like a cup of tea, or perhaps a beer. I said OK, but really would prefer a glass of wine, if she had some open. As I packed up my drill, rule, level, and screwdrivers, I slipped my Sig P365, snug in its inside-the-waistband Kydex holster, into my toolbox. As a detective, I'm required to always be armed, but the Sig would be handy enough. Oona fetched two Riedel white wine glasses -- she has refined tastes -- and a bottle of King Estate pinot gris from the fridge.
Our conversation roamed as we sipped -- to her three kids (they were with their father this weekend), our jobs, our "wonderful" bosses, the wine, Mary and how devastated she still was over Kyla's death, and our shared love of Shakespeare. The three of us had seen an outdoor Hamlet just the week prior. Energized by intelligent conversation with a gorgeous older woman -- Oona had maybe ten years on my 25 -- who was not in the throes of severe depression, I paced as we talked, gesticulating as we bantered lightheartedly about the interpretation of some lines in Hamlet. It was a breath of fresh air for me, the best time I'd had since I'd first heard of Kyla's illness.
