Chapter Fifteen

Ryan

I can’t believe this is happening. For all intents and purposes, Sophia and I are in a fully committed relationship with each other. We get to share the same bed, we get to give each other the kind of attention boyfriends and girlfriends would be expected to give each other in public, neither of us is allowed to see anyone else, and we’re sealing the whole thing officially.

In the eyes of everyone else, this relationship is completely real, which makes me wonder how much of a leap we’d have to take now to make that true. I know the agreement we have is purely for business purposes, but I wonder how long it will take for the definition between fake and real to dissolve completely. The only thing keeping this from actually being entirely real is the way we’ve chosen to define this according to the way each of us thinks the other feels, and definitions are always open to reinterpretation.

Even if Sophia doesn’t feel the same way about me as I do about her right now, there is every chance she might do in the future, and until then, I’m going to enjoy every single minute of our time in each other’s company, especially out here in public, where our singular aim is to convince everyone else we are a couple.

That means hand holding, bum squeezing, spontaneous hugs, secret kisses, neck and shoulder massages, and all of the other thousand and one things I’ve been dreaming about doing since we first met. Seriously, I feel like I’ve won the lottery right now, without even thinking about the inheritance money that this is all for. I would be happy like this for the rest of my life without receiving a penny, if we got to carry on at home what we’re practising right now in the street.

“Just tell me if it’s too much”, I say to Sophia as we make our way to the city clerk's office, her hand hot in mine.

Sophia gives me a smile. “In less than an hour you’ve already become the most affectionate boyfriend I’ve ever had”, she says.

“If I’m overacting”, I say, “tell me. I’m just acting naturally. I mean, this is how I would act if I were about to marry the one.”

“I’m kidding”, Sophia says. “I like it. I especially like it when you wrap your arm around me like this—.”She takes my arm and wraps it around her shoulder, pressing herself against my chest and wrapping her own arm around my back underneath my jacket. “It’s harder to walk, but it makes me feel protected.”

I kiss her on the head and tighten my grip. She smells of vanilla and coconut and I have to kiss her again.

“And this?” I say, lowering my hand to rest it on her bum cheek.

“That’s good from time to time”, Sophia says, as I give her bum a squeeze. “We can do that when it looks like we think nobody is watching but we actually know that they are. You squeezing my bum, us kissing with tongues, me sitting provocatively in your lap on park benches like we’re fifteen again.”

I watch either a memory or a fantasy sparkle across Sophia’s eyes, pull her into me and kiss her passionately on the lips.

“What was that for?” she asks.

I shrug. “Nothing”, I say with a smile. “Because I love you.”

“I love you too”, Sophia says. “More than I’ve ever loved anyone else in my life.”

There is a very brief moment in which I can’t tell whether she’s acting or not, where I wonder if what I’m seeing in her eyes and hearing in her voice is actually true, or whether I’m just making it up because I want to hear it, before she smiles and wrinkles up her nose and says, “that’s good.”

“You felt it, huh?!” I ask.

“I think you’re getting better at this”, Sophia says. “You almost had me fooled.”

“And you, me.”

“Marshall’s lucky to have us.”

I kiss her again, leaving my lips to linger a little longer on hers this time, just because I feel like it. “We’re here”, I say, her silk brown chocolate eyes looking up at me with what could easily be interpreted as raw desire. If Sophia wasn’t such a brilliant actress, I’d be in no doubt to as what that look meant but because she is, I can’t risk thinking it’s anything other than a fantastic performance.

“Pop quiz hotshot”, Sophia says excitedly.

“Go.”

“Birthday?”

“You’re a capricorn, fourth of january.”

Sophia smiles widely while I feel her hand squeeze mine. “Film?”

“Amelie, because you have a girl crush on Audrey Tautou.”

Her eyes sparkle excitedly. “Family?”

“One sister, one brother. Your brother lives in London and is a techno geek, your sister you don’t see much, and she’s a doctor.”

“You’re good at this”, Sophia confesses.

I play it cool, fold up my collar and put on as best a James Dean accent as I can. “I don’t know if you know this baby, but It’s my job.”

Sophia giggles in the way that makes my whole body throb with desire for her. She leans into me, her hand on my chest to whisper something in my ear.

“Position?” she says and steps away smirking like a mischievous schoolgirl.

I put my hands behind my back, turn slightly sideways onto her, look behind me, look down to the ground and then look at her, my smile about as wide as a watermelon slice.

“Missionary?” I guess, and Sophia can’t help but laugh.

“No”, she says, shaking her head.

“That’s the only one I know”, I say.

Sophia takes one look either side of her and then steps towards me. “Reverse cowgirl”, she says about as seductively as you can make those words, “It’ll blow your mind.”

My eyes going wide and my voice getting caught in my throat are not part of my performance, but then again little of this is. She said, it’ll blow my mind and I can’t help but think she did that for a reason. It will in the future blow my mind, not anyone else’s.

“That sounds way more interesting than missionary”, I confess, my voice almost breaking.

“It’s best after we’ve both pleasured each other for a while”, Sophia says. “That way we’re both already on the edge. I’ve never come as hard as I have doing reverse cowgirl, not even with missionary.”

I realize I’m not saying anything, partly because I’m concentrating hard not to get an erection, partly because I think I might have already failed and the last thing I want is for Sophia to spot it.

“Blue, Seven, thirteenth of August, Forest Whitaker”, Sophia says eventually and I feel like I can finally breathe again. “Did I miss anything?”

I shake my head. “Spot on.”

“Awesome”, she says. “Shall we go in?”

“Yes”, I say, taking her hand again and pretending to take control, even though my heart's still beating at about the speed of sound.

We make our way through the entrance doors, past security and up to the reception desk.

“We’d like to get married please”, Sophia says brightly to the miserable looking attendant.

“Do you have a licence?” she asks us.

Sophia shakes her head. The attendant picks up a form from the desk in front of her and passes it to Sophia. “Fill that out”, she says. “Did you bring ID?”

“Yes”, Sophia says, “I have my passport.”

“Both of you?” the attendant says, looking at me suspiciously.

I nod.

“Fill it out, make sure there aren’t any mistakes and take it to the marriage bureau. It’ll be thirty five dollars and you’ll be able to get married tomorrow.”

“What happens if there are mistakes?” Sophia asks.

“You’ll just have to do it again”, the lady says plainly. “I presume you brought a pen?”

“We’ve got a pen”, I say.

“Good. End of the corridor, door on the right. If you have any more questions, they’ll be able to help you in there.” She gives us one more suspicious look before adding, “good luck”, and calling the next couple in line to the desk.

We make our way to the marriage bureau, which sounds like something out of 1984, but in reality is just a room with a bunch of chairs and another miserable looking lady at a desk in the corner. There are several people in here already filling out one form or another, who look up and smile at us as we find a pair of empty chairs.

The form is relatively straightforward. All it asks for is name, address, date of birth, social security number, and has a section which we both have to sign to declare that there is nothing impeding us from getting married. When Sophia has filled out her section, I fill out mine and we both sign the form at the bottom, ticking the boxes that are relevant to our situation. I thought there might be some special section for Sophia to fill in because she’s not American, or some ridiculous hoops she needed to jump through, or a series of specific forms just for her, but it’s way simpler than that. Unless we’ve fucked up on a universal scale, this is even easier than getting a cell phone contract.

Once we are done, we’ve checked that there aren’t any mistakes, and we’ve both had a laugh at the photos on our respective identifications, we take the form and our ID up to the counter.

“Sophia Grace Moreaux and Ryan Carter Speed?” the attendant asks us.

Sophia takes hold of my hand and squeezes. “That’s us”, she says, leaning over the desk.

The attendant takes our identification, scrutinizes Sophia’s much longer than mine and then eventually hands them back. “How long have you been together?” she asks, her beady eyes addressing us over the rim of her glasses.

Sophia and I look at each other. I know position, film, favorite actress and family history but I have no idea when we actually officially got together, and I think Sophia sees it because she’s the one that takes control.

“Men are awful with dates”, she says. “We were chatting online for a while before I came to the States. I tell Ryan I came here to study, but he doesn’t know the real reason is because of him. We ended up being cast in the same play together, you might have seen the adverts, it’s a small production called Redemption and we just kind of hit it off properly then.”

The attendant looks at Sophia and then looks at me as though she might have just found both of us on the bottom of her shoe. “I haven’t been to the theatre for about a million years”, she says, before an awkward silence hits us like a wall. Seriously, no-one says anything for what feels like a ridiculous amount of time before eventually, after God knows what test she’s just put us under finishes, she finally says, “Cash or card?”

“Cash”, I say quickly, my wallet practically leaping out of my pocket in case she says no. She counts it as meticulously as she scrutinized Sophia’s passport, before eventually it appears she’s happy. “Take a seat, I’ll call you when it’s done.”

“That’s it?” Sophia asks.

“That’s it”, the attendant says plainly. “After lunch tomorrow you can come back, join the queue, get married and live happily ever after.”

I don’t expect her to smile, and when she does it feels like her whole face is going to break. Sophia and I make a beeline for the seats as quickly as possible.

“That’s it?” she says again, perhaps a little confused the whole process hasn’t been harder.

“That’s the first step, darling”, I tell her. “We get the marriage licence and then we have sixty days to use it.”

Sophia puts her hand on my leg and squeezes my thigh. “I like it when you call me darling.”

I get the impression that she’s either had a shitty run of boyfriends before, or she’s just met assholes that haven’t treated her right. “How about sweetie?”

“That too”, Sophia says. “Darling, sweetie, honey, baby, gorgeous, hot, naughty, sexy, I’m happy with all of those.”

“When should we tell Marshall?” I say, the thought suddenly occuring to me.

“He’s going to find out today that we’re an item, because I’m going to tell Tracy, and we’re going to be unable to keep our hands off each other”, Sophia says. “Maybe we should wait until the play is finally finished to tell him we’re actually married.”

“I don’t think it matters too much”, I say. “If we can get some kind of story out about our relationship I think it’s enough. Marshall doesn’t need to know that we’re getting married, all he needs to know is that we’re crazy in love with each other, and if we tell him it happened because of him, he’s just the kind of person to admit to seeing it coming all along.”

Sophia rolls her eyes. “Absolutely”, she says. “That’s so Marshall. He’ll not only take full responsibility for us getting together, he’ll pretend he knew all along it was happening under his nose.”

“It’s fine”, I say. “It’ll totally work in our favor. Marshall’s just the kind of person to want to sell us to the world as well. If you think Tracy’s got a big mouth, Marshall’s like a megaphone compared to her, and he’s got all the right contacts to spread the news around like the latest viral cat video.”

“I have to find out about my visa”, Sophia says. “The sooner I get that sorted, the better for us both.”

“What about work?” I ask. “You got anything lined up?”

Sophia shakes her head. “Despite all the amazing reviews we’re getting, I haven’t had a single call.”

“Something will turn up.”

Sophia rests her head on my shoulder and runs her hand along my thigh a little closer to the bulge of my dick than I think she intends. “Something already has”, she says, smiling up at me.

“The production might go on for longer than you expect”, I say. “It could be an extended run.”

Sophia shrugs. “That’s okay”, she says. “I like the part, and the money’s good after all.”

“I like the part too”, I confess, pulling her into me to breath in her smell again. “It’s a lot of fun working with you.”

“Saying goodbye to William and Elouise is going to be a lot easier now”, she says. “We don’t have to say goodbye to them at all.”

“I can’t tell you how happy that makes me feel”, I say, “I was worried we’d lose contact after the play, and then you’d go back to France and we’d never see each other again.”

Sophia twists her body towards me. “Really?” she says.

“Sure”, I admit. “That’s one of the things I hate about acting. You get to spend an insane amount of time together in this really intense relationship and then all of a sudden it’s over and you have to just cope with getting on with your own life.”

“It doesn’t always have to be like that”, Sophia says.

“No, it doesn’t always have to be like that, but it invariably is.”

“We would have stayed friends”, Sophia says, leaning against me again. “You know, if we hadn’t decided to get married that is.”

“You know that’s going to be the best decision of your life, don’t you?” I joke.

“Without a doubt”, Sophia agrees.

A silence settles in around us while we wait for our marriage licence to be processed, the magical piece of paper that anyone getting married here needs to bring with them in order to do it officially.

From time to time I hug Sophia into me and kiss her head, and she squeezes my thigh or buries kisses against the sensitive part of my shoulder, while we quietly try and guess nationalities and backgrounds and life stories of those people around us.

Either sitting here chatting, or sitting here just in each other’s company, I feel relaxed, restful and extremely happy. There is a seriousness to what we are doing here I don’t feel the need to address, and something terrifying about the idea of commitment in general that would frighten the life out of me if it were with anyone else, but because this is Sophia and because of the certainty of the way I feel about her, this whole thing seems like about as big a deal as deciding what to get for lunch. For all that it matters, Sophia and I could be waiting for a prescription or a product to be delivered, not a licence to wed.

It takes the best part of an hour for our names to be called, and when they are, we practically jump out of our seats, more excited than we are capable of hiding.

“Sophia Grace Moreaux and Ryan Carter Speed”, the attendant says again, this time a little quieter. My heart is beating like the bass line of a techno track while we wait for her to hand over the certificate.

“You’ve got sixty days”, she says, dropping the certificate on the counter and spinning it around with a deft flick of the wrist so it’s the right way up for us to read. “After that you’ll have to apply again.”

A perfunctory glance tells me the information is all correct. “And we just come back here?—” I ask.

“If you want to get married here at the office, just come back here with at least one witness, the marriage license, the same ID as you’ve just used now, identification for your witness, a bottle of champagne and some confetti, or whatever it is you people like to celebrate with, and we’ll get you seen as soon as we can.”

“That’s it?” Sophia asks.

“Welcome to America, honey”, the attendant says plainly. “Have a nice day.”

“Thank you”, I say, and we make our way quickly back outside, just in case they change their minds.

Outside, we pause to look more closely at the marriage license.

“That was a lot easier than I thought it would be”, Sophia says. “I don’t know what it’s like in France, but I doubt it’s as easy as that.”

“I’m surprised too”, I say. “I thought we’d have to convince someone we were doing this for real.”

“We are dummy”, Sophia says, and it takes me a moment to realize she’s in character.

I put the marriage license in my bag and sling it over my shoulder. “I’d suggest lunch, but I’ve just spent my last thirty five dollars on our future”, I say.

Sophia hooks her arm in mine and pulls me into her. “Don’t worry about that”, she says, “I’ve got you.”

“You sure?”

“Sure I’m sure”, Sophia says. “You can get me back when we’ve got so much cash we don’t know what to do with it.”

As we begin to walk, I let my hand slide down Sophia’s back to rest against her bum, and every once in a while I give it a squeeze just to make sure it’s still there.