The bride carried her new husband across the threshold, clutching him to her breast. After the long day of ceremony and photography, the evening of speeches and dancing, he was dehydrated to giddiness and only weighed about two kilograms.
"Oh Matilda," he sighed. "I'm so happy that's done."
"Me too, Gregory," Matilda said. She closed the door and wore him as a brooch as she moved toward the big heart-shaped tub. "It was a lot of ceremony, but I do feel closer to you."
Gregory flexed his narrow tendrils around her arm, the permeability of his outer membrane combined with his dryness made him sticky, but he would never draw her moisture, not if his life depended on it. He chuckled, his telepathic voice a little sharp. "Yes, but I meant how glad I am to get away from all those other people."
Matilda's hand paused on the way to the faucet. "I thought you liked my family."
"I do, Darling, of course I do," he said. "They produced you, the most charming, beautiful, kind..."
Matilda's new husband, an alien from the Andromeda Galaxy though he had a different name for it, got loopy when he got so small. Most of the time it led exactly here, to extreme flattery. It could also lead to unexpected places. He never mentioned a dislike for her family before, and she knew he was susceptible to persuasion when he was like this. She knew if pressed a little, he might tell her many other things he never had, all the feelings he held back about her family, friends, and all of Earth, maybe even a few things about Matilda herself. She plugged the tub and started the water, deciding it unfair and a bad foot to put forward into their marriage.
"I love you, too, baby," she said. "Do you want to get in?"
His whole blue body pulsed, his noodle-like appendages caressing her neck. "Let it fill a little, I want to plump up all at once." He giggled, his dense flesh rolling into her bodice and beneath her breast. "Do you know how much I've been looking forward to this?"
Matilda sighed, shaking her head. "I've begged you..."
He laughed again, gripping her nipple tighter within him, making her gasp in surprise and her back arch in pleasure. "It's very important to my people to follow the customs of your people."
Admissions of desire were also more prevalent when he was in this state, and she didn't want him to stop his caress, but she was confused. "My people? I never followed that custom; I told you about the men I've been with..."
"I know, Darling. I loved it when you told me of all the things you've done, it made me want this even more, want you. I am so happy we can be together at last."
"Then whose customs are you talking about?"
"Your parents, of course. If a disgusting space jellyfish like me is going to get my filthy tentacles all over his little girl..."
Matilda clenched her jaw. "He said that to you?"
"Oh, Darling, I've upset you, I'm so sorry!" Gregory drew back, loosening the grip of his membrane. "Your mother said it's very important to your people's custom that you are not upset on your wedding day, and I definitely cannot mention... never mind that. Mm, Matty your skin is making me tingle. Do you feel it?"
"Yeah, baby, I do," Matilda said, trying to control her voice, but it wavered. Her parents, since being threatened to be cut off over disparaging remarks, had not disparaged the relationship to Matilda. They always acted understanding, even proud. They were on record as being extremely proud. Part of her wanted to find out how deep their disapproval went, but she shook her head to the notion "Are you ready to go in?"
"Oh, you are upset." Gregory withdrew most of his mass to her shoulder and upper arm. "Matty, I didn't want to upset you today."
Matilda took a dripping handful of warm water from the tap and poured it over her husband. He shivered against her, his faint pulse becoming stronger, and not a drop made it to the tub or her gown. "I'm not upset at you, baby. You've been wonderful, you've always been so wonderful, and I hate that they can't accept that."
"Don't hate, my dear," he said. "I don't blame them for their attitudes, and certainly don't hate them. It is a custom of your people to be hostile to what you don't understand. Except you, Darling, my sweetness, my perfect specimen of humanity I love so much..."
Matilda rolled her eyes as he went on, splashing him again and pulling gently on his squishy body when he ignored her. "Baby, if you don't get into this tub, I'm taking you in, two-thousand-dollar dress and all."
Gregory gasped. "That would ruin the delicate chiffon ruffles!"
"I know," Matilda said. "So you can tell how serious I am."
"Oh, I really have upset you, I'm so..."
"I'm not upset, baby, I just know that when you get like this, you sometimes say things you regret later. I'd rather talk when you're thinking clearly."
"Oh Matilda, you're so good to me," he sighed, sliding at last from her shoulder and down her arm. The large tub had filled to a quarter of its capacity, and he reached in as Matilda touched the turbulent surface. He poured off her, letting go with a final snap, and fully submerged a moment until he filled the space the water had and a little more, his permeable skin absorbing every water molecule that touched it. His long tentacles, about a centimeter and a half thick now and still growing as water continued to pour from the faucet, slithered across one another. He sat silently for a moment, filling the tub at a rate slightly faster than water alone as the billions of tiny sacs within him rehydrated.
"Better?"
"Yes, thank you," Gregory said. The reserved quality of his voice indicated his embarrassment, but he drew himself up a little and raised five tentacles, twisted together and separated again into the shape of a hand to meet hers. "Matilda..."
Matilda smiled as his plump, smooth flesh came against hers and wrapped around. He was warm, like the water he absorbed, and his faint pulse had grown with his body to be more powerful than she ever felt it, though he got much bigger than this. "Are you alright, Gregory?"
"Yes," he said. "Yes, of course."
"You're trembling."
"I'm so excited, so happy, but so nervous, even afraid..."
Matilda took his bundle of tendrils in both hands, gripping reassuringly. "What are you afraid of?" She gave him a long moment to reply, and finally prompted him, "What my father said to you?"
More tentacles slithered up from the tub, surrounding her hands with slippery warmth and gentle pressure. "He has said many things that made me doubt my suitability as your partner, some of which are unquestionably true. I knew it would upset you to find out. We have been through this before, dozens of times."
"Hundreds," said Matilda.
Gregory chuckled, still emerging from the mass of himself to wrap her forearms. "I trust you and love you, so I believe you, yet I cannot put their doubts from my mind. This fear kept me from acting on my desires, hiding behind your parents' demands because I can't help worrying that you'll be wrong. That our differences will prove too great."
"You can be so silly for such a wise being," Matilda said, leaning over the tub. She flipped the shoe from her right foot and pulled the stocking down. "I've wanted this for a long time, Gregory, and never more than right now. May I get in?"
Gregory shivered, still growing as the hot water poured onto him. His tentacles shifted, creating a space for her, and she tossed her other shoe, swinging her feet over the edge and between his warm members. "Darling, you're still in your gown."
"Be careful with it, won't you?" Matilda said as she slid into the tub. Gregory could control the rigidity of each silky-smooth appendage and they were soft now, comforting and inviting as they slid around her legs beneath her elaborate skirts. He reached around her torso, and she felt the bodice loosen as nimble tentacles, sensitive far beyond human touch, unlaced it. More tentacles gripped the chiffon ruffles, pulling from beneath to expose the slip that barely covered Matilda's breasts.
The skirts and bodice were tugged down, submerged into the writhing mass of thickening tendrils. He pulled out from the opposite edge, hanging neat and pretty as the day she picked it up, and took it all the way to the closet by the kitchenette. Matilda closed her eyes as she was drawn deeper into the tub, stroked on all sides by his slithering body. She gripped one in her right hand, relishing the hardness it took on in response to her touch.
"Are you comfortable, Darling?" Gregory whispered.
"Yes," she said. "Are you?"
"Quite so." She could hear amusement in his voice, relief. "Perhaps more comfortable than I have ever been."
Her husband continued to grow, reaching up, he stroked over her head, releasing all the pins that kept her long straight hair in a crown of coils without sticking to the hair. Able to control the stickiness of every surface on his body toward the surface or substance of his choosing, he latched onto her nipples and pulled gently. More tendrils slid beneath and around her breasts, squeezing with his warm pulsing body. He had sixty-one thick blue tentacles surrounding her, taking her weight and supporting her. She lay back with a sigh, feeling as though she was floating, every touch focused on her comfort and pleasure.
As the stimulation of his many sliding arms became centered around the one between her legs probing the squishy mound beneath her panties, Matilda cried out again with a twitching motion that brought her knees together. "Gregory..." she gasped. She regretted that he paused, and then retreated slightly. "No, no," she said, and laughed when he withdrew further, exasperated. "No, I meant yes. Gregory, I like what you're doing. If you have any doubt, press harder there."
"Here?" he said, prodding her underpants again. She moaned in response, and she hoped he could hear the pleasure in her voice this time. He relaxed his fears and tightened the membrane against her crotch, stroking her a little harder. "Matty, I feel your heat."
"Yes," she moaned. "That feels nice, how did you learn to..."
"I've done a little research. Your nerve endings are very dense here. I love the way you move when I touch you there, let me know if you get too warm inside me, or if I squeeze too tight, or I do something that you don't like as much..."
"It feels good to be in your embrace," she assured him, stroking one of his members. "I love you, Gregory."
