Mari

The need to dance is eating me alive as Gray takes my arm and pulls me out of his mother’s living room to the patio doors where my papa is waiting.

He looks good in his good jeans and a snazzy shirt that’s unbuttoned halfway down to his navel, his chest hair crawling out as if it’s alive and sentient.

Gray mutters something about genes under his breath and hands me off to papa who’s smiling at me like I just gave him a report card bearing the hallowed A I never quite achieved.

“Mari, sweetheart, you look good.”

“M’kay,” I mutter, blowing at a stray piece of hair that’s waving at me from atop my head. My eyeballs feel droopy so I open them wider and watch papa’s lips smack together as his shoulders start shaking.

“Your mama better be right about those kids.” He sighs, taking my hand to pull me out of the house.

I see Ginny, Ing and Rox standing together, huddled around in the distance and Blay near Gray and a beaming Ed George. I’m so confused but my legs still feel wobbly and besides. I want to dance!

 

Gray

I’ll kill Lizzie, I think as Blay starts shaking with mirth and Mitch looks about ready to bolt when Mari starts singing.

Everybody get up, singing, one, two, three, four, five will make you get down now. Get on up!

Her voice is shrill and not at all what I would expect from a woman that beautiful, but what ruins my perfect wedding is the way she skips and dances her way down the aisle, stopping occasionally to hike her skirt and twerk.

Jesus.

Ro starts bawling, loudly. And Lizzie is cackling so hard the other guests stop staring wide eyed at the spectacle that will soon be my wife, to stare at the real life witch amongst us.

“I told you my kids were more normal! Take that Ro.”

I’m holding it all together, though I want to scream like a bitch, until my little buttercup freezes mid ass scoot and starts slapping at the air around her head screaming ‘bees!’

Tyson, the fuckwit finds this all so funny he falls off the chair and Tink is desperately trying not to laugh while slapping at the imaginary bugs and trying to wrestle Mari to me.

Eventually, after convincing her that she’s not being attacked by a swarm of killer bees, I get to stand beside my bride with cousin Tatum presiding, his shoulders shaking so much, he lets out an occasional snort while marrying us in a choked whine.

“Do you, Grayson Archebald George, take Marionetta Ophelia Byrd to be your lawfully wedded wife?”

I get the I do out of the way on a bark and watch as Mari starts clacking her teeth, her brow puckered ferociously.

“Archebaaaaald! Archie. Arch. Baldie! Archebaldie!” she yells, getting Blay so fucking worked up the asshole’s knees give out and Ty has to help him stand up again, his knees wobbling.

“Mari! Pay attention. Please.”

“Do you Marionetta Ophelia Byrd, take Grayson…”

A look to Tatum has him going faster and he completely omits my full name before rushing to the end.

“I do…not know, I do not see why the butterfly loved the buuuumblebee. He had a buzz and she had a flutter, and together they had two kids named Butters!” Mari sings, giggling on a lip pop.

“Mari!”

“’Kay. Can we have cake?” she asks, flapping her hand at something around her head.

Swear to God I will kill Lizzie! I’ll put some of that bread of hers under her mattress for screwing this up so bad, and watch while she wheels herself around after those concrete balls have cracked her spine. If mere bread can harm the un-dead.

“Inowpronounceyoumanandwife.” Tatum yells before shoving Mari at me when her knees buckle. “Kiss the bride boy!”

I do as the man says, just to get her to shut the hell up and end the wedding with a heel to Blay’s ass when he can’t stop laughing or humming a funeral dirge.

By the main course I know for a fact that I am in deep shit with this family. Mitch has already threatened to kill me, Ro keeps asking me about my sperm count and Ian, in shorts and his fucking socks and boots, keeps cackling about my wedding night because Mari’s got cake on her face and keeps talking to someone beside her even though the chair is empty.

I find it all so funny myself that when Lizzie gets the DJ to play Private Dancer and Mari lets out a whoop, I can’t bring myself to stop her. The woman is not normal that’s all I can tell you, when she runs onto the middle of the dance floor and starts emulating Tina, lip curl and all.

Her hips shake, her shoulders start rolling and she whips her hair around, all while wearing cake on her beautiful face.

All she needs to pull off that last percent of cool is the ability to actually dance and she could be famous.

Tink joins her, her little pregnant bump pushed out as she rolls her shoulders and slaps Mari’s ass, and Ing, in a tight ass dress that looks ready to explode around her ass, starts hopping and swinging her arm as if she’s holding a lasso.

“Good God, not Char.” Dad groans beside me and I look to see my mother let out a yell and join the fun.

I don’t think the Sprinkler is ever really in fashion but she gives it gusto, ending with a Madonna Vogue move that makes my dad laugh so hard he has to bend and grab his knees.

“What have I done?” I moan, chuckling when Rox slides into the crowd and starts MC Hammering the shit out of a tune that does not match her moves. “Oh what the hell.”

I slide on in there because let’s face it, I don’t have an ounce of shame and start trying my best to do something with a song that really has no actual rhythm.

I look awesome as I shake my ass and pretend to throw a rope around Mari and pull her in. It would be so cool if she actually played along but as it is, she’s back to twerking like she owns that move. Blay looks like someone just attached a livewire to his ass he dances so badly, with no shame whatsoever, and before I know it, Ro is dancing too, her round little figure shaking so much I see Tink take a boob to the eyeball and fall back with a cry, scrubbing at her eye.

“That nipple was hard, Ro. Gross.”

Mom slides over and I do my utmost not to laugh at her moves because she looks so happy I don’t wanna ruin it.

“If you survive the night Ro has to give me first dibs on the baby’s name.”

Shit.

“If I survive the night I’m naming my first kid Miracle. Even if it’s a boy,” I yell back, meaning it from the bottom of my heart because Mari stops dead in her tracks, turns to me with a bewildered look and then narrows her eyes dangerously.

Uhoh. Think the medication finally wore off.

“Shit, Grayson. Run. I told you she’s blood related to Lizzie!” mom yells, catching sight of the red eye.

I’m usually shameless and unapologetic, but I never once said I am not a coward. I do what my mom tells me to do, I’m a good boy after all, and bolt just as Mari let’s off a demon roar.

“Graaaaayson!” she shrieks in a deep voice that sends shivers down my spine.

Shit. Little Miracle better be worth it.

Mari

I groan as pain hits my brain, convincing me that a tumour resides in at least three points of the thing, and turn my head to the side slowly. My mouth tastes like Lassie violated me with his ass and my tongue is bone dry.

“Oh God.”

I moan again and manage to open one eye when the smell of coffee hits my synapses and starts my brain chugging back to life. I feel like I should know something. Be doing something. But all I feel right now as I roll over is death, or the need for it, as my head throbs.

“I brought coffee. And Tylenol.”

I know that voice, I think blearily as I turn my head and spot Grayson George standing over me, holding what smells like the Irish cure. It takes a bit, but I pry the other eye open and regain control of my muscles enough to push up.

The sheets slides down and I almost yell when my boobs pop out, naked and on display.

“Oh my God.”

I think I slept with Gray. Did I? I can’t tell. I thought for sure I’d know if I slept with his anaconda-what with the tearing and all-but seeing as I can feel almost nothing but shame and horror, I can’t tell anything right now except the need for coffee, a shotgun and a suicide note. All I remember is…

“Don’t get mad Mari. Not yet. My balls are still pounding from your fists and my dick won’t stop hurting either.” He whines, dropping the cup on the bedside table before backing up a good four feet.

I’m so close to freaking out I can’t quite rightly explain it to you, but I force myself to breath and ignore the anger trying to bubble up. I need coffee. I need pills. I need to actually piece this all together before I lose it and do something I’ll regret on death row.

Grabbing the cup while keeping my eye on the wimp, shifting from foot to foot at the end of the bed, I take my first sip of happiness and try to remember everything that happened yesterday.

I have little bits and pieces shooting around. Ma and Lizzie dropping me down the stoop steps, then wrestling me into the car, even after I bit them both, going for nipple.

A giggle fest that occurred after I hung myself out the open window and almost made Lizzie crash. Some excellent cake that I can feel dried on my cheeks.

And then gaining some lucidity long enough to hear papa tell Ed that he never thought I would ever get married. I’m usually quite intelligent but it took me almost the whole shuffle’s worth of dancing for that little kernel to finally pop.

And then it did.

I looked down at my ugly dress, the pink fucking sneakers that I will assassinate Tink for and the smug smirk in Ing’s eye…and it all fell into place.

Okay, and maybe the hideous rock on my finger hammered it home too. Whatever. I was ready to do assault and murder, I was, but Grayson ran like a coward, screaming like a girl when I threw myself through the air and almost got to him, and papa caught me.

That man is strong. Grayson can thank him for moving so quickly or he’d have a widow, sitting on death throw, with a gold tooth made of a melted wedding ring and a teardrop tat to symbolise the first kill.

I kinda got over it a little when Tink handed me a bottle of Tequila and by the time I looked over to see him watching me fearfully I was so wasted I smiled at him and waved him closer.

Schmuck!

I hope his balls stay in his lungs.

“You better explain this real quick Grayson George or you can kiss your life goodbye.” I snarl around the lip of the cup, doing my damndest not to laugh when he grins and shrugs sheepishly.

“I thought I was saving you Mari. Lizzie said your dad used to beat you-”

I spew all over the duvet and have to use the ends to clean coffee from my nose before the brain eating fungus can take root before I have enough air to wheeze at him.

“My papa hits me? She said that?” I laugh, snorting so hard it dispels something gross with the rest of the coffee. “Are you nuts? My ma would have killed him and stashed him in the cellar freezer.”

You all have to understand why. Not to hide the body, but because she really does love him and wouldn’t be able to live without at least a body. I can just see it now, she’d freeze him by day and lug him up to bed at night for a snuggle before making me stash him again the next morning. Ma told me once she can’t sleep without papa’s ass shoved into her back when she’s got the blood flu, although how an iced ass would help is beyond me.

Focus Mari, this is no time to laugh, I chide, grabbing the coffee again, this time chugging the Tylenol. Gray rubs his toe into the carpet and gives me a cheeky grin before falling onto the bed beside me and chuckling.

“I know that now! After I tried to punch him.”

“You punched my dad?”

“It hurt me more Mari! Ouch, Jesus, I need nipples for sexual gratification too woman!” he snarls, rubbing at his nub with a groan. “I’m sorry. I guess I was just looking for an excuse to-”

“Drug me, marry me and have sex with me?” I snarl, getting the other nipple with a vengeance.

He squeals like a girl and scoots further away, taking his heat and scent with him.

“No! I’m not a perv. Christ, all I did was clean off the barf Tink spewed on you when Effie’s Uncle hugged her and she pulled a spew on him again. I swear to god she’s going to give that man a complex if she keeps going.”

“Well he should learn to button his fucking shirt,” I bark, shuddering from memories of Joe’s hair that I am convinced is still stuck in my teeth.

Tink’s uncle Hair, as we call him, has a thing for open shirts. And he’s scary hairy, with some Grey thrown in to make it just that extra tad grosser. I’d chug a spew all over that pelt if he wasn’t too afraid to touch me after I nut slapped him one time.

“Come on, Mari, I’m sorry okay. Anyway, you ruined the day so you got your revenge,” he whines.

“Ruined? How did I ruin anything? I can’t even remember my own wedding!” I yell.

And then it hits me. Oh God. I’m married. Married. For life because if I get divorced ma will really have that heart attack she keeps telling me about and papa will cry himself to death. You don’t understand. Divorce in my family is bad.

Ma once confessed to me that if one of her children ever did that it would be worse than discovering that we were all prostitutes or worse, Democrats.

You laugh now, but ma took to her bed when Bobby married his wife Lucinda and ma found out she was a stinking ‘free thinking, immoral, pagan’.

And then she told ma she was a baptist and ma screamed so much I had to get her asthma pump and papa called Father O’Leary.

“It was great. And shit. You twerked down the aisle in front of my business associates. You kept talking to someone named Petra, and I know I didn’t invite a Petra and after you started drinking you made us all listen to Abba.”

I have a secret crush on the redhead. Don’t ask why. I think it’s because her perm was so tight that I just couldn’t resist, but then again, I am not quite normal so…

“Ggggooood! Oh God this is bad,” I moan, palming my face.

“Aw come on Mari, I know you love me.”

“My ass, you overinflated penis! You’ve slept with Glissy the freaking carb queen! And half of the city. Blay told me all about your love of multiples and I saw your nuts. They look virile, Grayson. I don’t want babies yet and your balls are big. I’d probably get knocked up if you sneezed.”

And that’s bad because the thought of sex, sperm and Grayson George’s tongue all over me gets me so worked up that I can practically see myself being happily married.

God.

He laughs, the idiot and shifts onto his side, resting his head on one arm.

“Ro wants one human grandkid Mari and it wouldn’t be so bad would it?” he wheedles, making my lip twitch.

I want to say yes, yes it would be because I have always wanted booger farms and a house that smells like baby shit and maybe one of those truly grotesque swing sets in the yard where one of the kids can break his arm trying to fly.

It’s sick to be this soft, this female when I swore I would be an independent woman. But I do want those things. Worse, I think I want them with Grayson and have since the moment he looked at me and asked me to drain his nuts dry.

“Shut the hell up. And stop trying to touch my pussy, Grayson! It’s not time for sex,” I screech, slapping at his hand.

“Just one feel. One,” he begs. “I haven’t even seen one in months and my dick is so sore from last night I wore a pad in case it bleeds.”

That makes me snort and I sigh, looking down at him with a resignation that feels good, as scared as I am.

“I promised ma I’d move in Gray. She needs me while the doctors test medications and papa will only worry if she’s alone at home. And you owe me! You knew I wouldn’t have a choice if we got married.” I hiss.

Gray just shrugs as if it’s gonna be okay to be married and live apart. As if. Now that I’m shackled to this ass, I fully intend to have me some sex after almost a year of going without it.

“Okay.”

“Okay! You think it’s okay that I have to move in with my parents and wear a ring without benefits? You think it’ll be okay every time my mother cries because I’m a bad wife?” I shriek, making my head ache a little more.

Stupid man.

“Nope. I mean okay. I hope you have a decent bed in your room because I have trouble sleeping if the bed’s not good.”

And just like that I feel a secret laugh bubble up in my throat. I bet Grayson of the silk sheets will soil his pants when he finally finds out where my bed comes from.