Incubus Dreams   ::   Гамильтон Лорел

I leaned back in line and tried not to embarrass anyone. I’d tied my hair back while it was still wet so that it lay flat and smooth to my head. I wasn’t cutting my hair so it was the best I could do to look like a boy. There were other parts of my anatomy that didn’t help the boy look either. I am curvy, and even in a tux built for a man, I was still curvy. No one complained, but the wedding coordinator had rolled her eyes when she saw me. What she said out loud was, “You need more makeup.”

“None of the other groomsmen are wearing makeup,” I said.

“Don’t you want to look pretty?”

Since I’d thought I already looked pretty good, there was only one reply, “Not particularly.”

That had been the last conversation the wedding lady and I had had. She positively avoided me after that. I think she’d been mean on purpose, because I wasn’t helping her keep the other groomsmen in line. She seemed to believe that just because we both had ovaries instead of balls that we should have joined forces. Besides, why should I worry about being pretty? It was Tammy and Larry’s day, not mine. If, and that was a very big if, I ever got married, then I’d worry about it. Until then, screw it. Besides, I was already wearing more makeup than I normally did. Which for me meant any. My stepmother, Judith, keeps telling me that when I hit thirty I’ll feel differently about all this girl stuff. I’ve only got three years to go until the big 3–0; so far panic has not set in.

Tammy’s father placed her hand in Larry’s. Tammy was three inches taller than Larry, in heels, she was more. I was standing close enough to the groom to see the look that Tammy’s father gave Larry. It was not a friendly look. Tammy was three months, almost four months pregnant, and it was Larry’s fault. Or rather it was Tammy and Larry’s fault, but I don’t think that’s how her father viewed it. No, Mr.

Nathan Reynolds definitely seemed to blame Larry, as if Tammy had been snatched virgin from her bed and brought back deflowered, and pregnant.

Mr. Reynolds raised Tammy’s blusher on her veil to reveal all that carefully made-up beauty. He kissed her solemnly on the cheek, threw one last dark look at Larry, and turned smiling and pleasant to join his wife in the front pew. The fact that he’d gone from a look that dark, to pleasant and smiling when he knew the church would see his face, bothered me. I didn’t like that Larry’s new father-in-law was capable of lying that well. Made me wonder what he did for a living.

But I was naturally suspicious, comes from working too closely with the police for too long. Cynicism is so contagious.

We all turned toward the altar, and the familiar ceremony began.

I’d been to dozens of weddings over the years, almost all Christian, almost all standard denominations, so the words were strangely familiar. Funny, how you don’t think you’ve memorized something until you hear it, and realize you have. “Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to join this man and this woman in Holy Matrimony.”

It wasn’t a Catholic or Episcopalian wedding, so we didn’t have to kneel, or do much of anything. We wouldn’t even be getting communion during the ceremony. I have to admit my mind began to wander a bit.

I’ve never been a big fan of weddings. I understand they’re necessary, but I was never one of those girls who fantasized about what my wedding would be like someday. I don’t remember ever thinking about it until I got engaged in college, and when that fell through, I went back to not thinking about it. I’d been engaged very briefly to Richard Zeeman, junior high science teacher, and local Ulfric, Wolf-King, but he’d dumped me because I was more at home with the monsters than he was. Now, I’d pretty much settled into the idea that I would never marry. Never have those words spoken over me and my honeybun. A tiny part of me that I’d never admit to out loud was sad about that. Not the wedding part, I think I would hate my own wedding just as much as anyone else’s, but not having one single person to call my own. I’d been raised middle-class, middle America, small town, and that meant the fact that I was currently dating a minimum of three men, maybe four, depending on how you looked at it, still made me squirm with something painfully close to embarrassment. I was working on not being uncomfortable about it, but there were issues that needed to be worked out. For instance, who do you bring as your date to a wedding? The wedding was in a church complete with holy items, so two of the men were out. Vampires didn’t do well around holy items.

Watching Jean-Claude and Asher burst into flames as they came through the door would probably have put a damper on the festivities. That left me with one official boyfriend, Micah Callahan, and one friend, who happened to be a boy, Nathaniel Graison.

They’d come to the part where the rings were exchanged, which meant the maid of honor and the best man had something to do. The woman got to hold Tammy’s huge spill of white flowers, and the man got to hand over the jewelry. It all seemed so terribly sexist. Just once I’d like to see the men have to hold flowers and the women fork over the jewelry. I’d been told once by a friend that I was too liberated for my own good. Maybe. All I knew was that if I ever did get engaged again I’d decided either both of us got an engagement ring, or neither of us did. Of course, again, that not getting married part meant that the engagement was probably off the board, too. Oh, well.

At last, they were man and wife. We all turned and the reverend presented them to the church as Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence Kirkland, though I knew for a fact that Tammy was keeping her maiden name, so really it should have been Mr. Lawrence Kirkland and Ms. Tammy Reynolds.

We all fell into two lines. I got to offer my arm to Detective Jessica Arnet. She took the arm, and with her in heels, I was about five inches shorter than she was. She smiled at me. I’d noticed she was pretty about a month ago, because she was flirting with Nathaniel, but it wasn’t until that moment that I realized she could be beautiful. Her dark hair was pulled completely back from her face, so that the delicate triangle of her cheeks and chin was all you saw. The makeup had widened her eyes, added color to her cheeks, and carved pouting lips out of her thin ones. I realized that the orange that made most of the bridesmaids look wan, brought out rich highlights in her skin and hair, made her eyes shine.