This is my entry for the
2021 April Fools Day Contest
. It's a stand-alone piece involving characters introduced in my earlier stories, "Always a Bridesmaid" and "And Never a Bride". I invite you to read those as well. Enjoy!
*****
My phone buzzed, and I saw it was my boyfriend, Marcus. My mouth twitched in a smile seeing his name pop up, but I felt a quick stab of concern, because he rarely called from work.
"Marcus," I said. "Hi baby...is everything okay?"
"I just heard from my lawyer," he said. "The divorce is final. It's over, Kiki."
"Oh, thank god," I sighed.
Just a sigh? He was finally free from his short but bitter marriage, and free to get on with his life. After all he'd been through -- after all I'd been through with him -- I should have been weeping tears of joy or screaming with delight. No doubt those emotions would come later, but now all I could manage was relief.
"Oh, baby," I said. "Kimberly is finally out of your life. You're free, I'm so happy for you!"
"I'm so happy for us," he said.
"There's plenty of time for us," I told him. "Let's just give this a few days, or a few weeks, to sink in."
"Of course. Can we celebrate a little tonight? Just a quiet dinner? I already made reservations. Falacci's, 8:00."
"Okay, baby. See you then."
*****
A few hours later, I was rushing up to the restaurant, 15 minutes late because I got caught in traffic. I had tried to call and let him know I was running late, but it went straight to voicemail. As I entered the reception area, I scanned the tables, assuming he'd already be seated, but...no sign of him.
"Can I help you?' asked the pretty Asian hostess.
"I'm supposed to meet my boyfriend here. I don't see him..."
"What name were the reservations under?" she asked.
"Tyler," I replied. "Marcus Tyler." The hostess suddenly broke out into a beaming smile, which seemed a bit odd, but it stopped short of setting off any alarm bells.
"Right this way," she said, her professional expression back in place. She led me through the main dining room, toward the back of the restaurant where I knew there were private rooms. She stopped at an entrance to one of them, then opened the door and gestured me in...
...into a large room where a nervous-looking Marcus stood, and fifty of our closest friends and relatives stood behind him, with idiot joyous grins similar to what the hostess had flashed me. And then it hit me, even before he dropped to one knee in front of me, and my eyes filled with tears, so I never saw the little box, never saw the ring, just felt it sliding onto my finger.
Oh my god. Oh my god.
"Kiki," Marcus boomed in his deep, powerful voice, "will you marry me?"
"Let me get back to you on that," I replied, and for just an instant he looked crushed, so I grabbed his hand, dragged him to his feet and screamed.
"YESSSSS!!!"
at the top of my lungs, and I was in his arms kissing him, and our friends surged into us, and we shared a joyous group hug that seemed to last forever, and the hors d'oeuvres hadn't even arrived yet.
*****
Our large party of fifty or so exited the restaurant into the chilly evening, creating a logistical challenge for the understaffed valet station at a restaurant well known for long waits in the car retrieval queue. This was going to take a while, but everyone was in a good mood, so we took it in stride.
Over the course of the dinner, Marcus and I had actually spent very little time together, as each of us had been surrounded by well-wishers. Now that we were standing together, the smell of alcohol was noticeable on his breath, and he was red-faced with kind of an idiotic grin on his face. I remembered seeing him drinking quite a few toasts during the evening.
"Sweetie," I said as his car pulled up, "are you okay to drive? Should we get you a Lyft?"
"Huh?" He looked at me in tipsy confusion. "Thought we were goin' back to your place."
"Don't you have to get up early for work?" I asked.
"Nope. Takin' the day off. Figured we'd be up all night cere...cerbelating...celebraning." His leering grin was cheesy but adorable.
"Okay, stud," I giggled. "But you aint driving."
"I got this," said Marcus's cousin Alyssa, as she grabbed the valet claim ticket from his fingers. "You lovebirds go have fun, I'll get his car back to his place."
"Thanks, babe," I said. "I owe you one."
"Buy me lunch tomorrow and we're square. The Grill at noon?"
"You got it." I gave her a hug, then took my drunken boyfriend by the hand and dragged him toward my car.
*****
He slept during the twenty-minute drive to my house and awoke refreshed and eager. He tried to make out with me in the underground parking lot at my apartment complex, but I pushed him away. He tried again in the elevator, in front of an elderly couple I knew, and I held him off again.
"Sorry Mr. and Mrs. Carruthers," I said, then held up my hand to show off the ring. "We just got engaged." Their mildly disapproving frowns turned into smiles and congratulations.
Marcus was on me again in the hallway outside my door, as I dug through my purse for the keys.
"Stop it," I giggled, but I let his hands run free for a delightful moment before pushing him away.
At last, we were inside my place, and when he pushed me into the wall and kissed me savagely and began roughly undressing me, I didn't push him away.
"Can we skip the foreplay?" he growled as my dress fell away.
"Just fucking take me," I growled back.
We left a trail of clothes, some partially torn, on the way to the bedroom. On the bed, I ended up on top, and I straddled him and sat down hard on his rigid, angry hardon. I wasn't quite wet enough for a balls-deep freefall, so we ended up with him lodged three-fourths of the way in, with hot delicious pain radiating through my body as he stretched me to my limits.
I brought his hands to my full, heaving breasts (yes, they were actually heaving at that moment), and he knew what to do. He started gently tweaking and rolling my nipples, and I moaned at the warm pleasure that filled me. My body relaxed and he slowly slid a little further inside me but hung up again. We rocked gently like that for a moment...
...and then he sharply twisted and tugged my nipples, sending twin lightning bolts of pain arcing from my breasts to my groin...