FanArt by Fraylim: Bridal Experience (Patreon)

Fantastic work on this one, I think: beautiful, but also captures of some of the hesitancy or disbelief David carries through the experience. Following on from Monday's sneak peek, here's a bit more from later on in that scene, relevant to the image:

(Keep in mind that this is still early draft stuff, so apologies for typos.)

***

Julia brandished her knife at me. “Now tell me how it felt being the bride.”

            I pulled back my hand and smoothed down my dress, and felt the corset boning beneath, and the garter straps pulling taut as I crossed my legs at the knees with a whisper of stocking and a sigh of silk. “It felt—” and my throat tightened and I said nothing.

            Fortunately, the waiter returned then with our starter, little bruschetta breads drizzled in olive oil, mouth-wateringly garlicky. Taking a delicate bite, I hid my hesitation. Dabbed at my lips with a napkin and smiled for Julia and tried again.

            “It was…”

            Complicated: and I searched Julia’s face for what she wanted to hear and saw that it was complicated there, too.

            There was the purely physical side of it all of course, an aspect I couldn’t deny enjoying. Glasses of Prosecco, delicately sipped; nibbles of cheese and biscuits. And being pampered, of course, a feminine indulgence rarely enjoyed as a man, and rarely too as Cindy, outside of Asklepios Clinic extravagance. I simply couldn’t afford the massage and manicure, the salon facial and coddling escape into feminine luxury—even though Mel, bizarrely, kept trying to tempt me to a local spa. The truth was that the meticulous care the ladies at the bridal salon took with me felt exquisite: the care to my hair and body against a backdrop of soothing music and mild drunkenness—and the lotions and makeup that made me luminous like ocean waters under a full moon—and then sitting as they did my face, the tickle of brush at eyes and lips, careful blending, precise lines drawn, my features a canvas transformed under their skill.

            And of course, though Julia couldn’t know, this wasn’t my first time in white. But those bridal photos taken months ago at the Clinic had been pure fetish sexuality, tits and shiny lips manifesting Sin-DI’s wry metaphor for the bondage of matrimony. Then, my bridal experience had been one of objectification, sexualised bondage in which I was wrapped in white for the pleasure of another, a lesson in learned helplessness and submission.

            The experience today had been different. Sensual, yes, but somehow more real and consequently, intensely… alluring? if I’m being honest with myself.  And therefore, far more disconcerting than anything felt at the Clinic. I saw the bride in the mirror and saw myself and I liked who I saw.

            This realisation terrified me.

            A few short days ago, Julia wanted only to punish and humiliate me. From dragging me out to Noir to dressing me as a maid, my ex-girlfriend wanted me to squirm.

            And I squirmed: especially last weekend, at the bar dressed like some teen tart cruising for cock; and afterwards, kneeling in front of Caleb. No matter how used I got to these clothes, she found new ways to bring the embarrassing reality of these painful, restrictive or distracting clothes back to life.

            From the thong wedged up my ass to the hobbling pencil skirts that mocked my formerly masculine stride; the corset that stole my breath, or the flouncy skirt flirting at my thigh; new piercings, accessories at wrist or neck, bold swipes of makeup or her focus on some other feminine feature, be it hips, waist, bust or bum, bared midriff or glossy lips—Julia somehow managed to consistently bring back to demeaning life the realities of my female existence. Cindy might adapt, but Jules insisted David never forget who he’d been and how far he’d fallen.

            But somehow today was—worse; far worse, because there was no mockery intended. The whole day, from shopping and brunch to piercing and bridal experiences—had been….

            Joyful.  Yes, that was the word and the emotion whose name eluded me earlier. Joy, shining in Julia’s bright eyes all day: joy, not at my humiliation or immolation but in each others’ company and they day’s shared experience.

            But what pleasure could I find in an act than felt so terribly transgressive? When those ladies buttoned me into that bodice, I remembered my first bra. Yes, my first bra handed to me nine months ago, in a dirty little safe house with stained walls and cheap blinds pulled down over cracked windows. Still pallid and grey, a heavy pair of prosthetic tits hung from my chest. And under Agent K’s instruction, I slid my arms through the straps of that first bra and felt—ill, that deep-down stomach-churning sense of wrongness: a man, wearing an item designed for a woman.

            And as the wedding dress drew tight around me earlier today, I felt that same profound sickness of the soul anew. I was masquerading in matrimonial white. This was forbidden territory, the inner holy chamber, the walled garden and yonic space. Men were not allowed here. In this sacral event she stood resplendent at the centre of ritual. The groom was but an appendage to her brilliance, and all eyes followed as she was walked down the aisle, given away and transferred from one man’s ownership to the next. The woman flowed to meet the man, an inversion of their shared moment of creation in which agency was consumed and her final freedom expressed in a triumphant celebration of extravagant finery, flowers and dresses and bridesmaids and shining cutlery, a female memory to endure a lifetime.

            It was wrong, to enjoy this. I knew this deeply in my bones, in my soul, in every fibre of my being. Yet I saw in Julia’s eyes such euphoric enjoyment of the experience—and saw that her joy belonged not to her alone, but also as a reflection of my own, the shared light of sun and moon in the sky; and I felt sick.

            Julia stepped out from behind the heavy velvet curtains in her man’s suit and strode towards me with absolute confidence. I stood trembling in my wedding dress, and felt—with shivering intensity—fleetingly, frighteningly—yet not as Cindy, not as performance or disguise—female; and in the mirror of her eyes and the intensity of her gaze, I genuinely saw and felt myself as a girl, as her girl, and I felt warmth and I felt—

            “Now tell me how it felt being the bride,” she asked, and gripped by an intensity of fear or anger that left me breathless, I said nothing.

            Instead, wholly unexpected tears welled up in my eyes, my eyes shimmered in the soft lighting of the restaurant and then those heavy tears ran in rivulets down my cheeks to hang suspended at my chin before falling, sparkling, to the table, to my chest, onto my lap where they dotted the red silk with darker stains.

            I tried to smile, a watery weak smile, and snivelled a little. “It was—”

            Julia squeezed my hand. “I know,” she said. “I understand.”

            Careful to not ruin my makeup, I dabbed at my eyes with a napkin. “I felt—beautiful,” I said.

            “You were,” Julia said.